Timeline

• Oct 23, 2025: started reading.
• Oct 25, 2025: finished reading.

Review

Earlier this year I was lucky enough to read Kaminsky’s Deaf Republic. Naturally, I snagged this slim collection when I stumbled across it in an English bookstore in Mumbai.

He’s a much younger poet when writing these poems, and it shows to a degree. However, it is still a cut above most contemporary poetry being written today. It’s full of explicit nods to his influences and aspirations. The ecstasy and anxiety of the young poet is comforting, knowing what comes next. There’s a fantastic stanza early on that captures this well:

But on certain afternoons
the Republic of Psalms opens up
and I grow frightened that I haven’t lived, died, not enough
to scratch this ecstasy into vowels, hear
splashes of clear, biblical speech.

Lines like these are why Kaminsky is one of the most interesting modern poets, as far as I’m concerned.

This edition also includes several fun Easter eggs in the acknowledgements. Kaveh Akbar’s current agent, Jacqueline Ko, is mentioned as an early believer in his work. A pre-Nobel prize “Lousie” Glück is also thanked for feedback on the collection prior to publishing.