UCLA Journal of Radiation Oncology APRIL 2023 - Flipbook - Page 22
UCLA RADIATION ONCOLOGY JOURNAL
LOVE IN TRANSLATION
K
atie Farris believed that what turned
out to be her first date with Ilya
Kaminsky was simply meeting
up with him to help translate a poem
by the late Russian literary great, Anna
Akhmatova. Farris tells me, “I showed up
to this alehouse with my sharp pencils and
Russian-English dictionary, and found him
sitting at a table without any homework in
front of him. I had this little panic of wow,
I really misjudged that, but we actually did
translate Akhmatova’s ‘Veronezh’ together
while we waited for our food to be delivered
to the table.” Their partnership turned into
marriage, but the work they do to translate
the work of others—and promote poems in
translation into English—remains interictal
of their core, as does their unfaltering belief
that the other is their most important reader
and editor.
Organizations and institutions across the
United States have diligently lauched Justice,
Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI)
programs to endeavor systemic change.
But, long before JEDI, poetry has been used
as a format in which we ask and are asked
the hard questions, invited to engage or see
ourselves reflected back, and find where we
may feel through verbal imagery where we
fit into the world. Ilya Kaminsky was born in
Ukraine and lost his hearing at a young age.
The U.S. granted his family asylum when
he was a teenager due to antisemitism. The
work that he and Farris undertake is due to
“the 3% problem,” which, Farris says “means
we’re not really listening to the world—we
export culture, but instead of importing,
Americans appropriate it. Ilya has dedicated
much of his professional life to making
certain these voices are heard, and I am
here to support him in that.”
A The New York Times Notable Book,
Kaminsky’s Deaf Republic, published in
2019, could be seen as a prediction for the
Russian invasion Ukraine has endured for
over a year (not to mention a reaction to
the conflict since 2014 between the two
countries). Kaminsky, however, “saw it as a
book about people who fall in love and try
and raise children, and take care of their
neighbors, despite the violence that happens
around them, and to them, and at times
despite the violence that they inflict on each
other.” While the book is easy to parallel
with Ukraine’s current crisis, Kaminsky is
“attempting to tell a story that is true for
more than one place and more than one
time.” He’s pointing to the need for systemic
change, for us all to keep trying. When I tell
him that Deaf Republic is the most “Katie
Farris” thing he’s ever done with his work,
he says, “It is 500% true. Katie is my first and
last reader, my editor, my best friend and the
love of my life. The book went completely
through the filter of her imagination and our
life together, no doubt about it.”
Farris remains, through August, in active
treatment for chemo-resistant stage three
Lobular Carcinoma with metastasis into
her lymph nodes. After already enduring
a left mastectomy, node dissection, and
radiation—with additional side effects
(heart failure and extensive nerve damage),
there was a small relief when the lump
was determined to be scar tissue. She was
already working on poems that comprise the
just-released Standing in the Forest of Being
Alive, incredibly intimate poems that she did
not know, at first, if she would want to share
with the world—or if the world would have
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