We Lived Happily During the War

The Russian war in Ukraine is painful to watch. After two years on the front lines of a pandemic, we suddenly find ourselves watching from afar.

Ukrainian poet Ilya Kaminsky's poem “We Lived Happily During The War” was first published in 2009, and included in his collection Deaf Republic in 2019; this week it has been shared broadly across social media. In an interview, Kaminsky said: The poem is meant to serve as a wake-up call; to prevent people from reading "Deaf Republic" as a tragedy of elsewhere. Kaminsky was born in Odessa; his family was granted political asylum in the United States in 1993. In 2019 the BBC named him one of “12 Artists who changed the world.”

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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.