Ilya Kaminsky was born in the former Soviet Union city of Odesa, but his family was granted political asylum in the United States in 1993. 

Kaminsky began to write poems in English and explained, “I chose English because no one in my family or friends knew it—no one I spoke to could read what I wrote. I myself did not know the language. It was a parallel reality, an insanely beautiful freedom. It still is.”
 
 Kaminsky is the author of Dancing in Odessa, which won ForeWord Magazine’s Best Poetry Book of the Year award in 2004.

Sharing his well-known poem “We Lived Happily During the War” -

And when they bombed other people’s houses, we

protested

but not enough, we opposed them but not

enough. I was

in my bed, around my bed America

was falling: invisible house by invisible house by invisible house.

I took a chair outside and watched the sun.

In the sixth month

of a disastrous reign in the house of money

in the street of money in the city of money in the country of money,

our great country of money, we (forgive us)

lived happily during the war.