"Author's Prayer" by Ilya Kaminsky

Kaminsky immigrated to the United States in 1993; he was born in 1977 in Odessa, former USSR. He is a professor at San Diego State University.

Key terms: imagery, repetition, parallel structure, emjambment

Author's Prayer

If I speak for the dead, I must leave
this animal of my body,

I must write the same poem over and over,
for an empty page is the white flag of their surrender.

If I speak for them, I must walk on the edge
of myself, I must live as a blind man

who runs through rooms without
touching the furniture.

Yes, I live. I can cross the streets asking “What year is it?”
I can dance in my sleep and laugh

in front of the mirror.
Even sleep is a prayer, Lord,

I will praise your madness, and
in a language not mine, speak

of music that wakes us, music
in which we move. For whatever I say

is a kind of petition, and the darkest
days must I praise.

This poem is a rather short, but fascinating, meditation on the power of language. Indeed, it is specifically about writing- the title mentions authoring specifically, but the title also mentions prayer, which is another powerful kind of text, whether written down or simply spoken (or thought). The poem also mentions speech, prayer, praise, laughter, petition, and music; these are all powerful kinds of texts. The poem moves quickly between these ideas and they even seem to be linked with running, touching, sleeping, and living. The belief that this expresses is such that all life is a text: spoken, unspoken, and written, and that it is all powerful. It is all influential and memorable and worthy.

http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/239986