Deaf Republic: Poems Kindle Edition

I bought this to preview for an upcoming “Big Read” event sponsored by NTID. I was excited at the prospect of having students in grades 9-12, maybe even 6-12 having a shared experience with poetry that would also enlighten them on the deaf perspective. Unfortunately, there are several poems expressing overt sexuality and adult language. As an adult, I’m fine with it, but I don’t think I could sell this to my administration as even PG-13 appropriate.

There's some stuff that could trigger people like wars, mentions of sex, etc. But if you're able to handle that, it is a beautiful story that I love. The condition is good, who doesn't love that new book smell? Highly recommend.

This is an allegory in poetry I will return to again and again. Individual lines within individual poems are moving in their own right, but the cumulative effect of this book is what I love most from any literature: it leaves me contemplating life, feeling my perspective on the world has shifted from what it was when I read the first page.

Gets to you--deeply moving.

When you get to the end, you wonder how Kaminsky worked his wondrous magic, how it's possible to think and write poetry like that. The poem is a story about Vasenka, a mythical town somewhere in the Ukraine, occupied by the Soviet army during an unspecified period of time. It is an allegory of the cruelty of occupation, the futility of the resistance of a few, and the deafness of the silent majority, a deafness that courageously resists the occupation and a deafness that hardens the heart and ignores the evil surrounding them. It could have happened anywhere anytime. The occupiers could have been Nazis, Ottoman Turks, American, English, or Spanish. The poetry is piercingly sharp, visionary, breathless and the metaphors are the likes of which you've never heard before, lines like “the sound we do not hear lifts the gulls off the water,” “Our hearing doesn't weaken, but something silent in us strengthens,” or “In these avenues, deafness is our only barricade.” This is drop-dead beautiful poetry.

My granddaughter is an avid reader and started reading this the day she received it.

I found this text easy to follow, the imagery easy to see, and the theme well presented. The story being told and how it is told is captivating but then Kaminsky ties it to the reader. The story takes place in another place, almost another time, but Kaminsky is able to tie it to the reader. We, the readers, become the townspeople. Well somewhat. We become the townspeople when they watch. They just don't watch, but we do.Opening and closing poems stood out to me the most. But the characters and their poems, the imagery, I love it all.

The story of a puppet show, a town occupied by an invading army and a love story written as one long poem; truly amazing. I have to keep buying this book again and again because I keep giving my copy away. I want everyone to read it.

Dramatic, sustained but emotionally superficial The childish message is: we are the good guys, they are the bad guys. The grey zone of the human heart is absent.

I do not read much poetry but his poetry certainly has an impact and makes one aware of the of inhumanity of war..

This collection was getting so much hype both sides of the Atlantic that I let that die down before getting my hands on a copy. I was disappointed.

Magnificent and heart-rending. Very visual too, every poem more powerful than a thousand pictures, and it feels more real than a documentary film. So glad I’ve read it.

Best poetry book I've bought in years.