Poem post: We Lived Happily During the War

We Lived Happily During the War
By Ilya Kaminsky

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.

* * * * * *

An old one (2013), probably familiar, but one of those poems that feels to me like it has always existed, that each word is inevitable.

Pádraig Ó Tuama has a Poetry Unbound episode about this poem, and gives a wonderful reading of it.

O'Tuama asks a beautiful question: "who is in your household?"

What do you notice in the poem?

I notice the enjambment, the way the line breaks press the thought into us like a reed into clay. When the speaker talks about the actions of the "we", the line breaks do a lot of work:

                And when they bombed other people’s houses, we

--followed by a line break and then a full stanza break, and then "protested." That is, the space tells us -- there was delay, hesitation, incompleteness, insufficiency.

                but not enough, we opposed them but not

-- again, there's a full stanza break before the second "enough." In that gap between "not" and "enough," I hear things like "not so much that it would get the "us" in real trouble."

And also "enough" standing by itself asks, as Ó Tuama asks: what would be enough?

The poem can also be found at the Poetry Foundation. It opens Kaminsky's collection Deaf Republic, which tells a kind of parable about resistance to tyrrany in a town called Vasenka. (I am hunting up a copy now.)

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