Yesterday in the New York Times, I read M. Gessen’s opinion piece, “They Invented a New Language for War”. Gessen reported from Odesa, Ukraine where the poets of Odesa are writing a chronicle of life in wartime, and changing the language they use.

I am reminded of two poetry books by Ilya Kaminsky.  He was born in Odessa, former Soviet Union in 1977. In 1993, his family was granted asylum by the American government and came to the United States. Dancing in Odessa was published in 2004 in Canada.  The book is a marvel.  I see how much we need poetry. I offer excerpts from the poem “Praise”.

We were leaving Odessa in such a hurry that we forgot the suitcase filled with English dictionaries outside our apartment building. I came to America without a dictionary but a few words did remain: 

And he lists his own definitions for words we know: Forgetting, past, sanity …

The poem goes on and comes to this:

On the page’s soiled corners

my teacher walks, composing a voice;

he rubs each word in his palms;

“hands learn from the soil and broken glass,

you cannot think a poem,” he says,

“watch the light hardening into words.

His book Deaf Republic was published in 2019.  The book begins with the poem We Lived Happily during the War.  It’s about living in the “great country of money”, America, and ignoring destruction in other countries.

The last poem in the book is “In a Time of Peace” and shows how we go about our daily lives even as the horror of what is happening is seen on our phones.

I contrast his amazing writing and insight with the news that, as of 1921, Yosemite’s annual budget is around $30 million.  Trump’s trips to the Daytona 500 and Superbowl cost about $25 million.  Accounting, anyone?  Accountability?  Sanity?

Who and what defines, and what language do they use?