UCLA Journal of Radiation Oncology APRIL 2023 - Flipbook - Page 23
UCLA RADIATION ONCOLOGY JOURNAL
interest in her sharing them.
So, as their world burned with undisputable
daily hardships and uncertainties, she
wrote poems from and about her all-toohuman condition, with the same lyrical
dance of bodies and sexuality that her work
has always held. And yet...the new poems
held new elements. She says, “The central
question of the book is why write love
poetry in a burning world? My book is my
messy, imperfect answer to that question.
I have learned that the right time to write
love poetry to a burning world is when it is
burning—and it’s always burning.” The book
is filled with visceral moments, but, more
than anything, there is a speaker reaching
for light, and, at times, for levity. I tell
Farris that in “Said the High Priestess to the
Magician” and “Come to Me,” the speaker
and the beloved seem two-sides of one lovecoin, one saying he sees me and the other
saying I see him, in a way that only those
truly in love can. She tells me, “I’m happy
to have both ideas present—that there’s a
speaker and a beloved, and at the same time,
it is certainly both Ilya and myself!”
to witness Katie's own responses and to be
influenced by them. She is such a brilliant
literary artist, after all.”
The Akhmatova poem they first translated
together ends, “And then the night comes
on/ which has no hope of dawn.” I have
found Kaminsky and Farris in embrace as
the night continues, and they, together,
hope for dawn...and from that hope, they
write with the pure clarity that is our human
condition. ☐
https://www.ilyakaminsky.com
https://www.katiefarris.net
Contributed by: Ciara Shuttleworth
Ciara Shuttleworth is an alumnus of the prestigious San Francisco
Art Institute. She has worked for three prominent San Francisco
fine art galleries. Additionally, she has provided art consulting
for private and corporate collections, including Google. She is
also a published writer with works in the Norton Introduction
to Literature and The New Yorker. Her most recent book is the
poetry collection, Rabbit Heart.
Kaminsky and Farris spent more consistent
time together during the pandemic than
ever before. They are both traveling again,
doing readings, taking on translation
projects, working for more—and more
diverse—voices to be heard. And continue to
hear and respond to each other. Kaminsky
said, “While I am writing about history,
about how we live in it, despite it, she is
writing about the body, about the crisis of
the body, and how we live in it—and she has
been writing about it for years, long before
her new book. Although in this new book
it comes to full spotlight since the crisis is
so visible with cancer. But in the end we
are both asking this question: how does
the literary toolset, literature as a made
thing, as craft and art-form, help one to ask
impossible metaphysical, survival, essential
questions. And, no doubt that I am here
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