_mg_1244Photo by stéphane groleau

With only three poets to select from this gets to be a solo by Ilya Kaminsky

from Deaf Republic:

1 : Such is the story made of stubbornness and a little air

Two lines from Deaf Republic: 4

He played the accordion out of tune in a country
where the only musical instrument is the door.

Lines from Deaf Republic: 13

Six words,
Lord:

please ease
of song

my tongue.

14 : Each man has a quiet that revolves

15 : Motionless forgetful music of women and men

16 : Yet I am. I exists. I has

These poems are from the unfinished manuscript Deaf Republic. This story of a pregnant woman and her husband living during an epidemic of deafness and civil unrest was found beneath the floorboards in a house in Eastern Europe. Several versions of the manuscript exist.

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