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Czeslaw Miosz, winner of the 1980 Nobel Prize for Literature, reflects upon poetry's testimony to the events of our tumultuous time. From the special perspectives of "my corner of Europe," a classical and Catholic education, a serious encounter with Marxism, and a life marked by journeys and exiles, Milosz has developed a sensibility at once warm and detached, flooded with specific memory yet never hermetic or provincial.

Milosz addresses many of the major problems of contemporary poetry, beginning with the pessimism and negativism prompted by reductionist interpretations of man's animal origins. He examines the tendency of poets since Mallarmé to isolate themselves from society, and stresses the need for the poet to make himself part of the great human family. One chapter is devoted to the tension between classicism and realism; Milosz believes poetry should be "a passionate pursuit of the real." In "Ruins and Poetry" he looks at poems constructed from the wreckage of a civilization, specifically that of Poland after the horrors of World War II. Finally, he expresses optimism for the world, based on a hoped-for better understanding of the lessons of modern science, on the emerging recognition of humanity's oneness, and on mankind's growing awareness of its own history.

Customer Reviews (1)

Bad News: It Witnesses Us
"I have titled this book _The Witness of Poetry_ notbecause we witness it, but because it witnesses us," Miloszsays. This Nobel Laureate who's been around the block is believable when he says it looks like we are in big trouble. That we are a loathsome and self-loathing, despairing, cruel race isn't really news, but Milosz goes further and tells us convincingly how we got to be such [people]. If you follow him this far, you'll want to read on to see what advice he offers before it all goes up the spout (or we simply turn into zombies). So.... either read this short "poetics" and then his tiny book _Road-Side Dog_, or read _Road-Side Dog_ (maybe start with "Beautiful Girl") and then read the _Witness of Poetry_.Pretty amazing guy.-- Oh, and I don't think there'll be a movie. ... Read more

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A Polish poet remembers when life was an easy place to be, in a memoir that pays tribute to his home town of Wilno and draws portraits of such literary influences as Jerzy Andrzejewski, Robinson Jeffers, and Dostoevsky. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

This book goes everywhere I go
I bought this book in 1990, and it's travelled with me everywhere I've been since then.Not that I'm constantly reading it -- as a matter of fact, I think I last opened it a year ago -- rather, I think of it as a medicine cabinet of little insights and stories: wisdom in distilled, titrated doses, a portable collection of innoculations against quotidian ennui, antidotes for social blindness.It's hardly Milosz's best book; but it represents something of an apotheosis of the personal literary journal, and as such it's a good reference or example to have on hand.I sincerely recommend it.

Unattainable Earth
So far Unattainable Earth has been awesome. No, I haven't finished the book, but I've read enough to get a biased opinion about it. I'm determined to finish it because I like it a lot. The author put together different poems together from his and other authors' works. The poems are very well expressed, and showed many emotions. One thing that I liked the best was the fact that the author explained how you can never fully express yourself in poetry or anything else because we just don't have words for some things (p. 40). For me, I have a deep sense of love and hate that just can't be put into words. I do my best to write it in poetry, but it never works. I only know what I feel while the reader of my poetry gets just a glimpse of my true feelings. The poems written in Unattainable Earth are very descriptive and metaphoric. They don't all rhyme, but free verse is my favorite type of poetry. "Paradise"(p. 5-6) and "The Boy"(p. 52) have to be my favorite poems so far. I interpreted "Paradise" as being a poem of questioning and confusion. In seems that the author trys to describe paradise, but what is described isn't paradise at all. I love questioning deep subjects as paradise, love, and life. What are the real definitions of these words? I still have yet to learn because no one has been able to tell me."The Boy" seems to be more lonely. I get the feeling of separation when I read it. I see the whole poem as a metaphor. It just shows how imperfect us humans are. The "gypsy girl" points out all these things we have in our lives. When you look up close you see an innocent boy, but when you look at the whole scheme you notice all the imperfections and you notice how you are like that boy.I gave this book a four-star rating because it is an awesome book. The only problem I had reading it was that when the book went from to inscript to poem to inscript I got confused. I got the mind set of reading poems, so I tried to read the inscript with a rhythm, and it didn't work to well. I love the book and I would reccomend anyone with a open mind to read it.

Unattainable Earth
So far Unattainable Earth has been awesome. No, I haven't finished the book, but I've read enough to get a biased opinion about it. I'm determined to finish it because I like it a lot. The author put together different poems together from his and other authors' works. The poems are very well expressed, and showed many emotions. One thing that I liked the best was the fact that the author explained how you can never fully express yourself in poetry or anything else because we just don't have words for some things (p. 40). For me, I have a deep sense of love and hate that just can't be put into words. I do my best to write it in poetry, but it never works. I only know what I feel while the reader of my poetry gets just a glimpse of my true feelings. The poems written in Unattainable Earth are very descriptive and metaphoric. They don't all rhyme, but free verse is my favorite type of poetry. "Paradise"(p. 5-6) and "The Boy"(p. 52) have to be my favorite poems so far. I interpreted "Paradise" as being a poem of questioning and confusion. In seems that the author trys to describe paradise, but what is described isn't paradise at all. I love questioning deep subjects as paradise, love, and life. What are the real definitions of these words? I still have yet to learn because no one has been able to tell me."The Boy" seems to be more lonely. I get the feeling of separation when I read it. I see the whole poem as a metaphor. It just shows how imperfect us humans are. The "gypsy girl" points out all these things we have in our lives. When you look up close you see an innocent boy, but when you look at the whole scheme you notice all the imperfections and you notice how you are like that boy.I gave this book a four-star rating because it is an awesome book. The only problem I had reading it was that when the book went from to inscript to poem to inscript I got confused. I got the mind set of reading poems, so I tried to read the inscript with a rhythm, and it didn't work to well. I love the book and I would reccomend anyone with a open mind to read it. ... Read more

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poetry, tr by C. Milosz & L. Nathan ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Yes, yes, and YES!!!We need more poets like Anna Swir!
It's rare that a poet stirs and excites me like this one did.I first came across Swir from the wonderful poetry anthology by Czeslaw Milosz, "A Book of Luminous Things" where she totally captured my attention.The poetry here is always raw, direct and authentic, deeply sensual, accessible, and with none of the self-conscious mannerism or affectation that dominates the academic poetry churned out by American graduates of MFA-programs who are forever trying to get published in dreary WASPish places like The New Yorker.A large part of that is likely due to the fact of Swir having grown up in the place and time that she did, rather than in politically correct, sexually repressed suburbian/middle America.

Fierce
Fierce. That about sums it up, whether she writes a zen like poem on love and loss("like an eye and an eyelid/united by a tear " in "Sad Lovers") or sex ("you come to me at night,you are an animal/a woman and an animal can be joined/by the night only" in "A Bitch." ) One of her finest poems, discussed by Roger Housden in one of his "Ten Poems" series is here as well, "Thank You,My Fate." She was a remarkable person, fighting in the Polish underground, a nurse in the Warsaw ghetto, once an hour away from execution. Herfierceness comes from her life, one lived fully and in the toughest of circumstances. Copper Canyon has done us a service in unearthing her work from the Polish.

Precious stones
Rare is the poet who can put so much into so little.Anna Swir is one such poet. She writes...I am filled with love...as a great tree with the wind...as a sponge with the ocean...as a great life with suffering...as time with death.So childishly simple.So matter-of-fact and straightforward.Yet, so very correct. So very rich. As is each and every verse within this magnificent collection.

For many years ignored in her native Poland, Anna Swir has become discovered anew for the rest of the world thanks to fellow Pole and poet, Czeslaw Milosz.Working alongside American poet Leonard Nathan, Milosz cut these gems of rare beauty and wisdom with an exacting knife.Anna's very unique voice comes across as piercing and original as if she had written these poems in English.

If Anna has a soulmate in verse it might be that other solitary siren of the female voice, Emily Dickinson. Whereas Emily explored the hidden corners of the spirit, Anna's subjects center around the body, especially the female one and most of all, what it means to traverse this life as a woman. While her topics range from her impoverished childhood in pre-war Poland to the unspeakable years between 1939 and 1945, Anna's main focus of attention is the examination of love, especially its physical component. Written in a style that is abrupt and yet abundant in both meaning and image, these poems celebrate the joys of the carnal.From a refreshingly female perspective.No roses here, no champagne glasses clinking in the distance, no pink hazes to suffocate on, these poems sketch a reality as it was experienced. For example, the poet praises her thigh as the prime reason for love in her life...It is only thanks to your good looks I can take part in the rites of love.Beware though, those looking for the strictly erotic would best look elsewhere.Anna Swir's world is a dualistic one, one of our crude and cruel instincts and also one of the spiritual promise sometimes found beyond them.The fragrance in the stench.The love in the gratification. The hope in the ruins.Of the act of lust, she writes in deadpan prose...You inseminated me and I gave birth to pearls...

Swir tries to shine light into those dark caverns where love is seemingly absent but isn't.Moreover, her poems strive to find a common denominator in all human experience irregardless of the moral element.Cynics might call this a quest for our common animality. I dare to call it a quest for our common humanity.That place where the sun shines with an equal intensity for both saint and sinner alike...She was an evil stepmother.She does not remember that she was evil.But she knows that she is cold.

With her deceptively simple style, Swir sometimes surprises the condescendant reader with stings of metaphoric (sometimes even aphoristic) brilliance that force one to stop and ponder.On her mother's death, she coldly muses...when it was over I was a corpse myself.Corpses do not cry.Or with brutal candor, she dissects the facade of romance...The greatest happiness you give me is that I don't love you.Freedom. Or about our very vain existence itself...You make among the trees a nest for our love.But look at the flowers you've crushed.

Each poem in this collection is a precious stone.Some more valuable than others, but each has its own sheen, shine and spirit. Anna Swir's voice is unparalleled in its uniqueness.Not only does she give a fresh insight into being a woman, but also an even fresher insight into being human.And for a better understanding of both, these poems are a great place to start.

powerful and stirring
What can I say. The world is lucky to have the work of Anna Swir. I read her book again and again. Each time, I feel renewed, more easily accepting my own journey.

A must read for women...
Anna Swir writes some of the most beautiful and deeply stirring poems I have ever read. It dives into the frailty AND the power of this womans spirit. Her poems paint pictures in your mind so real and tangible it is guranteed to leave you grasping for emotions and feelings that you may not have known existed within you. I say that it's a must read for women, and I know that coming from a man that is kind of a silly statement.But believe me, Anna writes from a unique and touchingly feminist point of view that in my humble opinion, all women would find both refreshing and inspirational. Here's a preview of her work I found to be beautiful:"THE GREATEST LOVE... She is sixty. She lives the greatest love of her life. She walks arm in arm with her dear one, her hair streams in the wind. Her dear one says, You have hair like pearls. Her children say, Old fool."Poems about old women are hard to find, as if they were taboo, or not worth mentioning in pretty prose. Anna Swir relates often to the matriarch as a symbol of timeless beauty and strength. One final:"THANK YOU MY FATE... Great humility fills me, great purity fills me, I make love with my dear as if I made love dying, as if I made love praying, tears pour over my arms and his arms. I don't understand what I feel, I'm crying, I'm crying, it's humility as if I were dead, gratitude, I thank you my fate, I'm unworthy, how beautiful this life."The book is also filled with some statements on her life, which after reading and understanding what she was surrunded by, leaves you in absolute awe every time you swim through her poems. Please, read these poems.You can thank me afterwards. ... Read more

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Many contemporary critics have been interested in Martin Heidegger's phenomenology and have recognized its importance for literary theory. As a continuation of theoretical explorations, this study undertakes a discussion of poetic visions of reality in the works of contemporary hyper-realistic poets, Czeslaw Milosz and John Ashbery. It breaks new ground by applying the key Heideggerian terms, Dasein, space, time, and culture to explore the reality created by and/or alluded to in the contemporary poetry of Milosz and Ashbery. In its final synthesis, the study proposes the comprehensive concept of ontological transcendence as a model to analyze multidimensional contemporary poetry. ... Read more

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Aleksander Fiut's study of the poetry of Nobel Laureate Czeslaw Milosz is the first comprehensive examination of the artistic and philosophical dimensions of this remarkable oeuvre. The author refutes such easy categorizations of Milosz as "the poet of Poland," "the poet of history," "the poet of the Holocaust." He examines instead such crucial problems as Milosz's search for the essence of human nature, irreducible to historical, social, and biological categories; Milosz's reflection on the erosion of the Christian imagination, which has resulted in a fundamental gap between the individual's inner life and the image of humanity formed by scientific theories; his efforts to rebuild the anthropocentric vision of the world, while acknowledging the elements that have undermined it; and finally, his attempt to recreate in his poetry a language that is both poetic and philosophical.The Eternal Moment originally appeared in Polish in 1987. This version, which quotes extensively from Milosz's Collected Poems, is the first thorough introduction for English-speaking readers to this major poet. ... Read more

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Czeslaw Milosz's poetry and other writings are becoming more widely read, especially since he received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1980. This collection of essays gives a cross-sectional view of major themes and motifs in Milosz's poetry, prose, and criticism, concentrating primarily on such questions as catastrophism, the concept of reality, Classicism, and political prose. ... Read more

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Aleksander Wat's memoirs provide a powerful and moving account of life in Eastern Europe in the devastating 20th century. The questions Wat raises here were put to him by fellow Pole and poet Czeslaw Milosz. Wat describes a vanished world of artistic innovation and political rebellion, but the heart of the book is Wat's encounter with evil in the Soviet camps and his subsequent religious conversion. My Century is a spiritual testimony - admirable, moving, and strong. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Good Explanation of the Politcal Division in 20th Century Poland and Russia
Though it is only one man's view, the book provides a good explanation for why communism never took off in popularity in Poland like it did in Russia. An interesting account of the political currents in independent Poland between the world wars. Also an interesting account of life in the gulags and the places people scattered to, like Khazikstan, when World War II broke out. There must be countless stories like this one, that will never be heard about. I also very much liked Milosz's Legends of Modernity, and Wat's experience truly augmented that read.

History as remembered
Aleksander Wat created this exceptional memoir solely by talking to Czeslaw Milosz during one year in Berkeley in the sixties. The memories of Wat (at that time already ill and very depressed) together with questions put to him by Milosz, a Nobel Prize winning poet and novelist, formed a unique book (in Poland circulated illegally for a long time and extremely popular).

Both Wat and Milosz went through the communist system and opposed it at the end, but Milosz early on chose emigration, leaving Poland initially for France and then for the US, while Wat, initially believing in The Party and the power of the working class, suffered the full impact of the machine. He tells the story of his enthusiastic youth, describes his fellow poets and writers, then moves on to his arrest and moving through Soviet prisons, without a trial for a long time, recalling other inmates and their stories, the methods for survival, the thoughts and torments. Then, finally moved to the work camp, he depicts in acute detail the life of the families and their struggle for sanity.

The New York Review of Books edition contains also the memoir of Ola (Paulina) Wat, Aleksander's wife, who supported him throughout his ordeal.

Although there are many books of experiences of the communist camps and especially the tortures of the intellectuals, who were torn between the idea of communism and its soon obvious wrong, every witness has eyes of their own and Wat, with his Jewish background and the soul of a Polish artist, makes his own, original statement.

Keeping the Memory Green
Andre Malraux wrote that only three books -- Robinson Crusoe, Don Quixote and The Idiot--retained their truth for those who had seen prisons and concentration camps (see: Les Noys de l'Altenburg (Paris 1948)).It's an odd remark--what did he mean, "seen"?Suffered in?Or watched newsreel footage on the History Channel? One cannot escape the conviction that Malraux is trying to hype the aroma of glamour around his own life.

But this is a distraction.The question is: I wonder what he thinks of the extraordinary array of "witness literature" from Europe beginning, perhaps, with Dostoevsky's "House of the Dead" and ending (one may hope?) with Solzhenitsyn's "Gulag Archipelago."

In this chorus, Aleksander Wat's "My Century" stands as a luminous example.Wat was a Pole: Jewish by background but at last a convert to Christianity.He was a poet and a "literary person" before and after World War II.Along the way, he spent time in 13 (or was it 14?) different prisons, all simply for being who he was."

His "memoir" is not precisely something he "wrote."Wat spent the year 1964-5 in Berkeley. There he fell in with Czeslaw Milosz, a great poet in his own right.Largely with the encouragement of Milosz, he "dictated" his story in a series of interviews which have been somewhat recast for this book.It's just as harrowing as you would expect it to be it has its uplifting side, driven by Wat's amazing inner resouurces: one thing about a good education, it gives you stuff to think about in Prison.And even at the worst, his sense of humor does not fail him. He recounts the story of the citizens of Bukhara, who surrendered to Ghengis Khan--only to have Ghengis Khan order their massacre. As Ghengis Khan explained to the elders:

"You must have sinned greatly against God if he sent Ghengis Khan down on you!"

Aside from Wat's own story, the NYRB edition includes an astonishing narrative by his wife, recounting a particularly dreadful chapter in her own prison years.

There is a promising-looking biography by Tomas Venclova, but I haven't read it.Wat died in 1967, I believe (though I can't seem to pin this down) a suicide. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

not so wonderful
Many of the stories in this collection have interesting concepts behind them.However, most, if not all of them, suffer from Wat's rambling style.At many points in his stories, his style seems overwrought, and it simply serves to obscure the meaning (not in that possitive "Faulkner" way).The pick of the litter here is the story of the isle of Kings.In it, Wat seems to state that a society cannot exist in a vacuum.In order for it to grow, it must come into contact with other societies (cultures).Thus, man left to his own devices eventually devolves into a barbarianism.Many of the other stories have good ideas behind them (like this one).However, I found this collection, and it's author's style cumbersome, and unenjoyable.I would recomend it only if you are either previously interested in Wat, or if you're deeply (and I do mean deeply) interested in European existentialism. ... Read more

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Nobel laureate Czeslaw Milosz selects and introduces 300 of his favorite poems in this “magnificent collection” that ranges “widely across time and continents, from eighth century China to contemporary americanca” (San Francisco Chronicle). ... Read more

Customer Reviews (17)

An anthology for everyone!!
This is an anthology that can please most tastes. It makes the reader think about the human condition, existentialism and simple and memorable happenings.
It is wonderful to see so many big names such asHerbert, Hass, Milosz, Jeffers, and Szymborska, reunited in one book.

A Luminous World!!
A Book of Luminous Things celebrates the ordinary, the joy of living, the awareness gained through maturity and the poetic spirit. The poems which are presented are written by American, Chinese, Polish and French poets.
The anthology begins with a very short chapter titled "Epiphany" and ends with a chapter titled "History". Epiphany is a privileged awakening to a deeper reality hidden in things and persons whereas History is an awareness of the ugly reality of the unspeakable deeds of cruelty committed in times of war.
I loved specially the contributions of Herbert, Hass, Milosz, Levertov, Swir, Jeffers, and Szymborska.
A great work!

Joyce Akesson, author of Love's Thrilling Dimensions and The Invitation

Anyone can find great value in this collection
Poetry collections can be quite valuable things - picking one up rather than a body of work by a single author frees one of the apprehension that comes with committing to that author's work and the possibility that said author's work might not be worth owning in such a concentrated format. Conversely, a collection of multiple authors can open a reader up to poets they may have never come across otherwise. Indeed, that was one of Milosz's aims in putting together this compendium - to largely deflect the focus from the accepted and reliable canon (though Robert Frost and D.H. Lawrence do find their way in somehow) as well as provide work from an international selection of authors (though the concentration is frustratingly biased toward English, Polish and Chinese language works - not a bad thing in of itself, but it does play against the international appeal to some degree). The other criteria is that the poems be "short, clear, readable and, to use a compromised term, realist, that is, loyal toward reality and attempting to describe it as concisely as possible" (p. xv). The work rarely sways from this description, though like any good author Milosz isn't afraid to break his own rules. What you arrive at in the end, then, is a collection of easily approachable, short works of poetry that tend to shy away from a philosophical or fantastic focus. That is not to say that the philosophic and fantastic are not there in the poets' intentions, thoughts and/or subtext, but they do not overwhelm the pieces. As for the editor's contributions, he formats each page by introducing the poems with a few sentences about them printed above, but I found that the best way to read the work was to start with the poem itself and then read the editor's note. I felt that reading these notes undermined the sense of mystery and discovery that comes with navigating one's way through a new poem, though reading these thoughts after usually provided me with some new insight into the piece. However, I did feel that his interpretations left little room for argument and undermined the multiple layers that many of the works here comprise. It was as if there could be no individual readings that differed from what Milosz thought - though this was not always the case, and more obvious in his tone than his content. Another point of bother was his critique of some of the works; for example, his note on Jean Follain's "School and Nature" - "Frankly, the modernist technique consisting of unexpected associations is not to my liking, as at the end of this poem, in which drops of blood fall upon a road. In order to understand this, we must presume that there are hunters in the neighborhood, that they shot a bird, and that a wounded bird flies over the road" (p. 162). These are rare, but when they are there I can see no constructive purpose; if someone likes the image they may feel embarrassed or frustrated that the editor has forced them into arguing with them, and if they interpret the image a different way than his literal understanding, an unconfident reader may feel, again, embarrassed, and one more sure of themselves may feel irritated at the editor's apparent limitations. In any event, I can see no good in this type of note, especially in that it is printed before the poem itself and thus one may be inclined to read it before the poem, probably putting a damper on their experience. As I said before, however, this type of thing doesn't happen too often, and when it does we can forgive it, because, qualms aside, this is a very good collection of poetry. Though not every piece is awe inducing, to ask this would be somewhat ludicrous, and more often than not the works were quite enjoyable. I found many that touched me deeply, and almost all of them had multiple ways in which they could be interpreted, multiple layers and viewpoints, and thus one can come back to any number of poems again and again. Layers aside, these are all works that are short, approachable and enjoyable enough to be reread multiple times, and as long as one knows to read the editor's note after, not before as the format suggests, the poem itself, anyone can find great value in this collection.

Collection surprisingly wide scope, but terse.
Milosz has assembled a refreshingly broad spectrum of Chinese, European, and American poetry into a solid collection.What I like about the works is that the language is terse, short, and powerful, though not always a hit with me.The Chinese works are like this, succinct, subtle, and surprisingly accessible.

Truly luminous collection
A stellar collection of the world's poetry.Read the poetry first, though, before letting Milosz's comments sway you in any direction.Interesting to see what he thought, which wasn't always my take.Some lovely jewels of poetry.Some old, some new. ... Read more