This is a short poetry collection that you can read in one sitting, but it’s one that asks you to take your time to digest the two-act story that unfolds across the pages. Deaf Republic is set in the fictional town of Vasenka, where deafness becomes a powerful form of dissent against a violent military force, particularly after one soldier kills a deaf boy. To hearing people, they may conflate deafness with silence, but as Kalinsky makes clear in the notes at the end of the collection: “The deaf don’t believe in silence. Silence is the invention of the hearing.” The collection is, in fact, buzzing with sound through choice words and illustrations of an invented sign language; it’s just not the kind of sound that hearing people automatically assume. 

There are so many ways to approach this collection, which I think makes it such a fascinating one. You can read these poems through the lens of disability or nationalism (thinking specifically of Ukraine). You can read these poems to consider everyday living during political unrest or explore the violence of war itself. Really, you’re reading this collection with all of these in mind, which allows you to fully experience the joys and tragedies of this deaf republic.