[Music intro]

LYNNE THOMPSON: Hello! My name is Lynne Thompson, Poet Laureate for the City of Los Angeles and I’m so happy to welcome listeners to this installment of Poems on Air, a podcast supported by the Los Angeles Public Library. Every week, I’ll present the work of poets I admire, poets who you should know, and poets who have made a substantial and inimitable contribution to the art and craft of poetry.

LYNNE THOMPSON: As the world looks on in disbelief and horror at the war in Ukraine, Poems on Air is compelled to reflect on the words of a poet born in that country, Ilya Kaminsky. Kaminsky arrived in the U.S. in 1993 and thereafter his family was granted amnesty by the US government. He is the author of Deaf Republic and Dancing In Odessa and holds the Bourne Chair in Poetry at Georgia Institute of Technology. Kaminsky lives in Atlanta. His words in today’s poem serve as a chilling indictment of those who chose to remain silent when they should take every opportunity to speak.

LYNNE THOMPSON: Today’s poem is "We Lived Happily During the War" by Ilya Kaminsky.

We Lived Happily During the War

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.

LYNNE THOMPSON: The Los Angeles Poet Laureate was created as a joint program between the City’s Department of Cultural Affairs and the Los Angeles Public Library and this podcast is available wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening!

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• Back to Poems on Air: Episode 49



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