Zoe Ward, Special to The Denisonian —

Poets Ilya Kaminsky and Katie Ferris took the stage for a Beck Series reading this past Wednesday, Sept. 11. The reading took place in the Denison Museum, where students sat perched on stools while being watched by unblinking portraits of Ukrainian citizens, as well as a bowlegged skeleton. 

Surrounded by a donor’s Ukrainian art collection and various interpretations of the human body, the setting felt curiously prepared for Kaminsky and Ferris’s work.

Kaminsky took the stage first, blithely referring to his wife as “the superior poet in every respect” before beginning his reading.” His first poem, “We Lived Happily during the War,” took new life through his voice. As Kaminsky continues reading poems from his book Deaf Republic, his voice took the form of gunshots and poignant silence. Under the museum’s lights, he created the snowy scene and redefined the idea of sound. When Kaminsky describes the deaf boy knocked to the sidewalk, it sounded as if he had just discovered him. 

When Katie Ferris gets up to speak, she also complimented her spouse first, as she said that “she’s wrecked emotionally, again,” despite all of Kaminsky’s readings she’s attended in the last 20-some years they’ve been together. In contrast to Kaminsky’s narrative read-through, Ferris gave biographical context before each of her poems. Ferris was diagnosed with breast cancer in August of 2020, shortly before turning thirty-seven, and pointed out that the cut-off braid on the cover of her book Standing in the Forest of Being Alive is a photograph of her real hair.

Ferris’s pieces were droll and riveting as she discussed mastectomies, strangers staring, and one of the “patron saints of this book, or one of the ghosts that haunt it:” Emily Dickinson. When Ferris read the stirring poem “In the Event of My Death,” Kaminsky in the front row watches with care–and a tinge of sadness–as she captures a somber moment with quippy humor. 

Ferris ended with a poem unbeknownst to the students: “To the God of Radiation,” a piece written after she was forced to make the difficult choice between “uncertain death” and “certain damage” during a radiation session. The poem’s stirring question “How much do you want to live?” rendered the audience thoughtful.

Dr. Kolchinsky Dasbach, who helped coordinate this year’s Beck Series readers, described how she selected Kaminsky and Ferris to read this fall. Kolchinsky Dasbach discovered Kaminsky’s first collection, “Dancing in Odessa,” while she was getting her MFA in poetry from the University of Oregon. She reflected on the experience by saying that Kaminsky’s work was “the first time someone is doing something in English that [she] had only heard before in the Russian language.” Kolchinsky Dasbach grew up speaking Russian and immigrated from Ukraine the same year as Kaminsky, although he was a decade older at the time. 

“It’s pretty remarkable to go from someone who you want to emulate and be like to be at the peer level with them,” said Kolchinksy Dasbach about her friendship with Kaminsky.

 When the full-scale invasion occurred in Ukraine, Kaminsky helped Kolchinsky Dasbach put together a Words Together, Worlds Apart Zoom event that featured ten Ukrainian poets and raised money for Ukraine.

Kolchinsky Dasbach was remarkably impressed by the outcome of the reading. “I had heard Ilya read many times,” she stated, “and in all of those times, I’ve heard him read I’ve never been so moved…It has to do with the dynamic he and Katie have together.” As Dr. Kolchinsky Dasbach and the English department continue to put together Beck Series readings, their foremost concern is Denison students. 

“With any Beck Series reading, I want students to see…poetry as alive, and as doing things in the world. The argument that poetry does nothing…is false. Poetry does so much and getting the poets here in person…just shows students how alive it is, how much it can create change,” said Kolchinsky Dasbach.

The Beck Series reading featuring Kaminsky and Ferris, as well as the Words Together, Worlds Apart event featuring Ukrainian poets, are cataloged on YouTube. The next Beck Series will take place on Oct. 14 in the Barney-Davis boardroom, featuring essayists Melissa Febos and Melissa Faliveno.