Ilya Kaminsky was born in Odessa, former Soviet Union in 1977, and is now widely regarded as the most exciting young poet in America. In 1993, his family received asylum from the American government and came to the United States. Ilya received his BA from Georgetown University and subsequently became the youngest person ever to serve as George Bennet Fellow Writer in Residence at Phillips Exeter Academy. Dancing in Odessa (Tupelo, 2004) is his first full length book. In 2005 alone, Ilya Kaminsky won the Whiting Prize, the Metcalf Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Foreword Poetry Book of the Year award. Kaminsky co-edited The Ecco Book of International Poetry (2010) and edited This Lamentable City: Poems of Polina Barskova (Tupelo, 2010). He has taught at San Diego State University and in the New England College M.F.A. Program and currently teaches at Princeton.