Ilya Kaminsky, “Still Dancing: An Interview with Ilya Kaminsky”
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I see it as my duty to report this lyricism in the whirl of our griefs. It is a personal responsibility for me: (highlighted in blue) My father was a Jewish child in occupied Odessa who not only suffered, but also learned to dance. He was shaved bald so that Germans wouldn’t notice his dark hair. The Russian woman who hid him, Natalia, hid him for three years. It is not an easy thing, to keep a restless child inside for three years. Natalia taught him how to tango. And so they danced for the three years of the war, in a room where the curtains were always drawn. (End blue highlight) Once, he escaped outside to play and German soldiers saw him, so he ran to the market and hid behind boxes of tomatoes. All my friends tell me there are too many tomatoes in my poems. They say there is too much dancing. Is there enough? I don’t know.
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