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Reposted by Ilya Kaminsky

Jessica Smith @thedaybooks.bsky.social · 6d

War on immigrants who probably fled countries where the U.S. started wars

Pam🫘🧶💙🏳️‍🌈 #NoKings🚫👑 @pmmcdaniel.bsky.social · 6d

www.democracynow.org/2025/10/1/he...

Federal Authorities Rappel into Chicago Apartment Complex and Arrest Alleged Undocumented Immigrants

As immigration raids continue across the country, federal authorities swarmed Chicago Tuesday morning for a major operation in which neighbors were awoken by the sound of Black Hawk helicopters swarmi...

www.democracynow.org

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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · Sep 7

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Our Kids Poetry Studio in Odesa is now in its 3rd year & kids, many of whom are refugees of war, are writing beautiful poems. Despite bombardment and sleepless night, they showed up. Here is a link: poemsnotbombs.org. Please consider donating to support this work.

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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · Sep 7

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Hello from Odesa, Ukraine, friends. An intense 24hours here, ranging from sleepless night of bombardments to a wondrous meeting of poetry with kids at our Poetry Studio (poemsnotbombs.org) here in Odesa.

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Reposted by Ilya Kaminsky

Sarabande Books @sarabandebooks.bsky.social · Sep 3

✨COVER REVEAL!✨ Poetry in translation collection LETTERS OF THE ALPHABET GO TO WAR by acclaimed Ukrainian writer Lesyk Panasiuk, translated by National Book Award finalist poet Ilya Kaminsky (@ilyakaminsky.bsky.social) and Katie Ferris is available January 2026.

🔗 Preorder link in bio!

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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · Jul 17

Friends, I will be taking time away from social media for a while. Be well.

Vacation

Today I cannot receive you
desperation, disappointment, tough legions of death.
Come by some other time, never,
and leave gallantly your business cards.

Emil Botta, Tr. from Romanian by Liviu Georgesc

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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · Jul 9

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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · Jul 9

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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · Jul 9

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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · Jul 8

When our government is asking to spend millions of dollars on the unnecessary wall instead of very necessary health care plans, these words should be our rallying cry:

"Move disability from the realm of medicine into that of political minorities"

--Rosemarie Garland-Thomson

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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · Jul 4

Thank you

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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · Jul 4

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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · Jul 3

I went to college in 1997. My mother was a widow, a refugee, and couldn’t help me pay for it. There is no way I would be able to afford college if it was 2025 & the bill US Congress just passed was the law of the land. There are millions of people like me. What a shame.

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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · Jun 20

Everyone is tired of endless images of violence—but if I don’t post this, who will? Since you won’t find it in most Western news: Russia attacked Odesa again, yet another assault this week. “A court martial of a city,” a friend calls it.

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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · Jun 17

“ Write it. Write. In ordinary ink
on ordinary paper: they were given no food,
they all died of hunger. "All. How many?
It's a big meadow….”

Szymborska wrote this after WW2. What changed? Starving people is a war crime. Starving people is a war crime.

t.co/9Elc3lTWud

https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/hunger-camp-at-jaslo/

t.co

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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · Jun 17

Killing people in food lines is a war crime.

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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · Jun 14

Nope.

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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · Jun 14

Four words, and already we are in Kafka Territory:

"Hey You! Papers, please?"

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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · Jun 14

Overheard:

"Soon, bored with their i-phones, i-pods and other forms of "mini me" which they see as mirrors, and not forms of surveillance -- they will udnerstand: t o remember is to betray a regime built on forgetting. Memory itself becomes a form of rebellion."

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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · Jun 14

overheard:

"In a life-time of a regime, a moment arrives when vulgarity isn’t a personal failing — it’s a state policy. Kitsch is armor against ethics; it’s collective anesthesia, pumped through every glowing screen and marching chant.

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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · Jun 5

👍💐

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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · Jun 2

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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · May 30

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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · May 29

Our Kids Poetry Studio in Odesa is in second year and kids, many of whom are refugees of war, are writing poems. If you read Ukrainian, here is the article: vo.od.ua/rubrics/kult... If you read English, here is a link: poemsnotbombs.org. Please consider support this work.

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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · May 19

Yesterday, Russia unleashed the biggest drone bombardment on Ukraine since war. People died. Meanwhile in Odesa, Ukraine, kids who are refugees of war continue to meet at the poetry studio and write poems—despite attacks on the city.

Please support:

poemsnotbombs.org

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Ilya Kaminsky @ilyakaminsky.bsky.social · May 12

Overheard:

“—This isn’t a time for decent people.”
“—When is?”

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