Deaf republic : poems / Ilya Kaminsky.

The Townspeople Tell the Story of Sonya and Alfonso Gunshot -- As Soldiers March, Alfonso Covers the Boy's Face with a Newspaper -- Alfonso, in Snow -- Deafness, an Insurgency, Begins -- Alfonso Stands Answerable -- That Map of Bone and Opened Valves -- The Townspeople Circle the Boy's Body -- Of Weddings before the War -- Still Newlyweds -- Soldiers Aim at Us -- Checkpoints -- Before the War, We Made a Child -- As Soldiers Choke the Stairwell -- 4 a.m. Bombardment -- Arrival -- Lullaby -- Question -- While the Child Sleeps, Sonya Undresses -- A Cigarette -- A Dog Sniffs -- What We Cannot Hear -- Central Square -- A Widower -- For His Wife -- I, This Body -- Her Dresses -- Elegy -- Above Blue Tin Roofs, Deafness -- A City Like a Guillotine Shivers on Its Way to the Neck -- In the Bright Sleeve of the Sky -- To Live -- The Townspeople Watch Them Take Alfonso -- Away -- Eulogy -- Question -- Such Is the Story Made of Stubbornness and a Little Air -- The Townspeople Tell the Story of Momma Galya -- Townspeople Speak of Galya on Her Green Bicycle -- When Momma Galya First Protested -- A Bundle of Laundry -- What Are Days -- Galya Whispers, as Anushka Nuzzles -- Galya's Puppeteers -- In Bombardment, Galya -- The Little Bundles -- Galya's Toast -- Theater Nights -- And While Puppeteers Are Arrested -- Soldiers Don't Like Looking Foolish -- Search Patrols -- Lullaby -- Firing Squad -- Question -- Yet, I Am -- The Trial -- Pursued by the Men of Vasenka -- And Yet, on Some Nights -- In a Time of Peace.

Deaf Republic opens in an occupied country in a time of political unrest. When soldiers breaking up a protest kill a deaf boy, Petya, the gunshot becomes the last thing the citizens hear--they all have gone deaf, and their dissent becomes coordinated by sign language. The story follows the private lives of townspeople encircled by public violence. At once a love story, an elegy, and an urgent plea, these poems confronts our time's vicious atrocities and our collective silence in the face of them.