The Townspeople Circle the Boy’s Body

Ilya Kaminsky is the winner of the 2020 Levis Reading Prize for his poetry collection Deaf Republic (Graywolf Press, 2019). The prize is awarded annually for the best first or second book of poetry published in the previous calendar year and chosen by the Department of English and its MFA in creative writing program at Virginia Commonwealth University. Kaminsky is the author of Dancing In Odessa (Tupelo Press, 2004), and has co-edited and co-translated many other books, including Ecco Anthology of International Poetry (Harper Collins, 2010) and Dark Elderberry Branch: Poems of Marina Tsvetaeva (Alice James Books, 2012). He is the recipient of the Los Angeles Times Book Award, The Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, The National Jewish Book Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, The Whiting Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Metcalf Award, Lannan Fellowship, Academy of American Poets’ Fellowship, NEA Fellowship, Poetry magazine’s Levinson Prize, and was also shortlisted for the National Book Award, National Book Critics Circle Award, Neustadt International Literature Prize, and T.S. Eliot Prize (UK).