Yetzirah Workshop—“Poetic Lineages” with Ilya Kaminsky
We will read poems from Jewish poets of Eastern Europe and elsewhere and we will marvel together on the idea of poetic lineages: how do poets learn from other poets across time and geography? Is there such a thing as a poetics of diaspora? poetics of exile? How do poets enter in conversation with poets that came before them? How do poets bring back to life the authors who came before them and were (unjustly) forgotten? How can our own words grow and change as we overhear conversations between other poets, on and off the page? I hope that in our time together we will all ask impossible questions—and then try to answer them with unpredictable new lyrics.
This workshop will be a modified version of the one Ilya taught at our 2023 Jewish Poetry Conference, to give you a taste of Yetzirah’s Conference offerings.
Sunday (1 pm ET for 1.5+ hours) March 31
$36—standard registration
$30—discounted registration for Yetzirah Members (you can become a member here)
*As we want our offerings to be accessible to all, there is a pay-what-you-can option if this pricing is a hardship
Ilya Kaminsky was born in Odessa, former USSR and came to USA in 1993 when his family was granted asylum by the American government. He is the author of Dancing in Odessa (Tupelo) and Deaf Republic (Graywolf) as well as co-editor of Ecco Anthology of International Poetry (Harper Collins), Homage to Paul Celan (Marick) and many other books. He has also translated books by Marina Tsvetaeva, Polina Barskova, Boris and Ludmila Khersonsky, among others. His work has received The Los Angeles Times Book Prize, The Guggenheim Fellowship, and was shortlisted for the National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award. Visit Ilya’s profile in Yetzirah’s Jewish Poets Database.
Though we encourage live attendance for you to get the most out of the experience, all sessions will be recorded and sent to participants.