#a city like a guillotine shivers on its way to the neck

[anotherbasicgirlie]

[lunamonchtuna]

— Ilya Kaminsky, “A City Like a Guillotine Shivers on Its Way to the Neck,” from Deaf Republic (via lunamonchtuna)

[mdemn]

your god comes and he is ordinary and terrible.

andalucia - lisa marie basile / the unabridged journals of sylvia plath - sylvia plath / christ in gethsemane, heinrich hofmann, 1886 / here come the regrets - epik high & lee hi / a city like a guillotine shivers on its way to the neck - ilya kaminsky / portrait of the illness as a nightmare - leila chatti

[kaleidoscopic-quiddity]

"「また会えるよね」" (We'll Meet Again Someday)

The Worm King's Lullaby - Richard Siken // A City Like A Guillotine Shivers On Its Way To The Neck - Ilya Kaminsky // White Ferrari - Frank Ocean // @/starpeace // @/inkskinned // The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades is Out to Get Us! - Sufjan Stevens // Slade House - David Mitchell // The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoevsky // @/universalclouds // Where Our Blue Is (Ao No Sumika) [青のすみか] - Tatsuya Kitani // Jujutsu Kaisen - Akutami Gege

[cursed-and-haunted]

web weaving for a story I'm working on

the torn-up road, richard siken / the worm king's lullaby, richard siken / brute: poems, emily skaja / interview with a falling angel, gregory orr / grief lessons, anne carson / @/meerschweinchen1993 / moby dick, herman melville / a city like a guillotine shivers on its way to the neck, ilya kaminsky / in heaven everything is fine, ilya kreydun / blud, rachel mckibbens / bleed for us, thomas broomé / white is for witching, helen oyeyemi / orestes, euripides (tr. anne carson) / anecdote of the pig, tory adkisson / judas’ gift, adam phillips / this man was shot 0.9502 seconds ago, david lynch / wishbone, richard siken / pitchcanker / the old man and the sea, earnest hemingway /  letters from medea, salma deera / before the court, aleksandr blok / sign of the times, harry styles / wolf in white van, john darnielle / the oersteia, aeschylus

[chameli]

― Ilya Kaminsky, Deaf Republic: 'a city like a guillotine shivers on its way to the neck'

idea & concept: @theinfinitedivides

[noxexistant]

on oscar delancey and religion

s. osborn, “blasphemies at the 5th street station” / ilya kaminsky, “a city like a guillotine shivers on its way to the neck” / nicola yoon, “the sun is also a star” / thomas daggett, “the prophecy” / avainblue / anne sexton, “speaking bitterness” / symptoms of scrupulosity ocd / sign outside a church

[smokefalls]

At the trial of God, we will ask: why did you allow all this? And the answer will be an echo: why did you allow all this?

Ilya Kaminsky, "A City Like a Guillotine Shivers on Its Way to the Neck" from Deaf Republic

[havingapoemwithyou]

a city like a guillotine shivers on its way to the neck by ilya kaminsky

[burnbrighterthanever]

maraschino red dress, ezra furman // x-men (2000), david hayter // @heterofemme // malakh, ezra rose // god lifts up the lowly, ezra furman // @autoluminescence // you want it darker, leonard cohen // a city like a guillotine shivers on its way to the neck, ilya kaminsky

[cssammyyarts]

“At the trial of God, you will ask: why did you allow all this? / and the answer will be an echo: why did you allow all this?”

- Ilya Kaminsky, from “A City Like a Guillotine Shivers on Its Way to the Neck,” Deaf Republic

[bobbyinthegarden]

2023 Reading Challenge. Poetry: Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky

I was originally going to read a collected volume of Paul Celan’s poems for this category, but changed my mind because I thought it would be better to read a collection of poems that were explicitly intended to be published together as a completed work. I chose Ilya Kaminsky in part because, ever since the invasion of Ukraine last year, I have been making an effort to read more works by Ukrainian writers, and in part because I attended an online poetry reading with him and really loved his work.

For the unaware, Ilya Kaminsky is a Ukrainian-Jewish poet, he was born in Odessa and became hard of hearing when he was four years old. His family moved to the United States when he was in his late teens, where he still lives, and he writes in English. Deaf Republic is one of his best-known works.

With the current climate, this  collection feels very prescient and relevant, due to it’s emphasis on the lives of every day people who are caught up in violent conflict, take for example, the very first poem in the collection (incidentally, also the first poem that I ever read of Kaminsky’s), which is called We Lived Happily During the War and goes as follows:

And when they bombed other people’s houses, we

protested

but not enough, we opposed them but not

enough. I was

in my bed, around my bed America

was falling: invisible house by invisible house by invisible house

I took a chair outside and watched the sun.

In the sixth month

of a disastrous reign in the house of money

in the street of money in the city of money in the country of money,

our great country of money, we (forgive us)

lived happily during the war.

The collection is especially interesting, as it is presented almost like a play, with two acts and a list of the “Dramatis Personae” at the beginning. The story is about the residents of a fictional town called Vasenka. At the beginning, a young deaf boy named Petya is murdered by soldiers, and following this, the residents of the town go deaf in protest.

I find myself at a loss, I almost have no words to talk about them, the works speaks for itself so beautifully, both to talk about death and trauma and to talk about love and joy. It feels very human. It a work that cares deeply about language, both spoken and signed (indeed there are visual depictions of sign language throughout the book), how we use language, or don’t, how damaging a person’s silence can be.

One poem that really stuck out to me for a long time after reading it was A City Like a Guillotine Shivers on Its Way to the Neck, which contains the lines:  

At the trial of God, we will ask: why did you allow all this? And the answer will be an echo: why did you allow all this?

This is an important book, I think.

I think everyone should read it.

[ladyimaginarium]

𝐓𝐀𝐆 𝐃𝐈𝐑𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐘.

dreaming your life away. — posts surrounding the dreamscape.

the nightmares were frightening and beautiful. — posts surrounding nightmares, specifically ones that affect me.

riding through all these western nights. — western aesthetic tag. horseback riding, riding & dying with the one you love, hanging around in trees, shoot your enemies dead with no remorse, playing guitar by the fire. tag title comes from ethel cain's 'western nights'.

the curse of the narration. — writing tag.

you poor thing; sweet mourning lamb. — my cult & the sacrificial lamb archetype tag. tag title comes from ethel cain's 'ptolemaea'. block this tag if you're triggered by cults & r.amcoa themes.

there's nothing you can do; it's already been done. — doomed to the narrative tag. the feeling that you've been doomed from the start & that your time is running out that you can't escape from. tag title comes from ethel cain's 'ptolemaea'.

god loves you but not enough to save you. — feeling abandoned by g-d. tag title comes from ethel cain's 'sun bleached flies'.

the trial of god. — asking g-d why all this is happening to me, placing Them on trial. tag title comes from ilya kaminsky's 'deaf republic: poems; "a city like a guillotine shivers on its way to the neck"'.

[adropofhumanity]

"At the trial of God, we will ask: why did you allow all this? / And the answer will be an echo: why did you allow all this?"

Ilya Kaminsky, from "A City Like a Guillotine Shivers on Its Way to the Neck," Deaf Republic

[litandlifequotes]

At the trial of God, we will ask: why did you allow all this? And the answer will be an echo: why did you allow all this?

"A City Like a Guillotine Shivers on Its Way to the Neck" by Ilya Kaminsky

[torrentialdreaming]

At the trial of God, we will ask: why did you allow all this? / And the answer will be an echo: why did you allow all this?

Ilya Kaminsky, “A City Like a Guillotine Shivers on Its Way to the Neck”, Deaf Republic