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Czeslaw Milosz did not believe he would ever return to the river valley in which he grew up. But in the spring of 1989, exactly fifty years after he left, the new government of independent Lithuania welcomed him back to that magical region of his childhood. Many of the poems in Facing the River record his experiences there, where the river of the Issa Valley symbolizes the river of time as well as the river of mythology, over which one cannot step twice. This is the river Milosz faces while exploring ancient themes. He reflects upon the nature of imagination, human experience, good and evil--and celebrates the wonders of life on earth.

In these later poems, the poems of older age, this Nobel laureate takes a long look back at the catastrophic upheavals of the twentieth century; yet despite the soberness of his themes, he writes with the lightness of touch found only in the great masters.

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Winner of the Heldt Prize for Translation. A new translation of the Nobel Prize-winning Polish poet, with an introduction by Czeslaw Milosz. This long-awaited volume samples the full range of Wislawa Szymborska's major themes: the ironies of love, the wonders of nature's beauty, and the illusory character of art. Szymborska's voice emerges as that of a gentle subversive, self-deprecating in its wit, yet graced with a gift for coaxing the extraordinary out of the ordinary. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Heart of the swallow/have mercy on them
What beautiful little worlds Wislawa Szymborska creates. Miracle Fair is an upstanding collection of her trademark intelligence, and simple yet very deep understanding of the mundane in nature and life's ironies. Her poems typically begin with the smallest of circumstances, and the reader follows it, assured of the simplicity of the theme, and then at the end comes the zinger which, with a line or two, transforms it into a much more complex creation. Which is not to say that her work is inaccessible; Szymborska is one of the most thoroughly enjoyable poets I have ever come across. This collection is a treat for lovers of natural poetry, and is filled on every page with graceful insights to the human condition.

Great Poetry That Is, For The Most Part, Accessible To All.
Wislawa Szymborska (pronounced Vis-wah-vah Shim-bor-ska) is one of the few women to win the Nobel Prize.She won it in 1996 for her poetry.What makes her poetry that incredible is that, in simple terms, she is able to convey universal thoughts.Although Szymborska is Polish, her poems are not restricted by Eastern European culture.They are universal.To start, I recommend you read her poem entitled, "Hatred." I showed that one to several people who alleged that they disliked poetry because they could never understand it.However, by showing such poem, each one of those people that I showed that poem to not only understood it, but recognized her genius.This won't be the case for all of her poems, as a few are abstract for the pleasure of abstract thinkers.If you enjoy this collection of poetry, look into Szymborska's other collections of poetry.You won't be disappointed.

A playful yet powerful poetic voice from Poland
"Miracle Fair: Selected Poems of Wislawa Szymborska" is translated into English by Joanna Trzeciak, and features a foreword by Czeslaw Milosz.The book also includes a biographical essay on the poet (pages 155-59).The essay notes that she was born in Poland in 1923 and received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1996.The essay also describes the challenges she faced as a writer under the communist regime that ruled Poland for decades.Also featured in the book are reproductions of whimsical collages created by Szymborska.

This is a rich and varied collection of poems.I was particularly struck by the author's wit, humor, and often biting satire.At times her work is graced by touches of the surreal or fantastic.Her voice can be both compassionate towards, and sharply critical of, humanity.Overall the book demonstrates her skill at using a variety of writerly techniques: direct address, personification, parallel structures, historical allusion, dialogue, and paradox.In her poetry she draws on the language of mathematics and other disciplines.

I found some of the most striking poems in the collection to be the following."Commemoration": written in the form a charmingly iconoclastic prayer."A Man's Household": a gentle and humorous satire of a man devoted to fix-it-yourself projects."Starvation Camp at Jaslo": a cutting meditation on injustice and suffering that employs biting, grim satire."The Turn of the Century": uses personification as a technique to look back critically at the 20th century ("Its years are numbered,/ its step unsteady")."Torture": employs particularly powerful language as she looks at the title phenomenon.

Also worthy of note--"Water": finds a globe-encompassing revelation in a single drop of water."A Word on Statistics": a cleverly structured, witty satire that leads to a real kicker of an ending."Pi": a poem about the mathematical concept of the title."Miracle Fair": a witty and wonderful piece that reminds me of the style and spirit of Pablo Neruda's great work "The Book of Questions.""Poetry Reading": pokes gentle fun at the poetic vocation.

The book as a whole is clearly the work of a skilled and confident master craftsperson who has a real passion to share her vision.Hers is a complex and compelling voice, at times grimly serious, at times playful and childlike.A number of her poems seem to invite the reader to partake of a dramatically altered, even magical perspective--a fresh and even radical new way of looking at the world around us.Her poems on violence and human suffering have a political edge and moral power that remind me of the work of Audre Lorde.And some of her poetry reminds me of Buddhist or Taoist thought--specifically, of teachings on emptiness and nonstriving.At her most luminous, Szymborska strikes me as firmly in the great tradition of poet-prophets exemplified by Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes, and other great voices.

On Szymborska
This is a splendid collection of verse.Szymborska's work is insightful and remarkably deep.This collection has a Forward written by Czeslaw Milosz, who comments that "Szymborska offers a world where one can breathe...."

Miracle Fair begins with "Commemoration" and "Openness," which attempt to situate mortal beings in a natural world full of splendor, mystery, and awesome wonder.This is a lovely collection, which includes "A Dream," "Cat in an Empty Apartment," and "Love At First Sight."There are other moving and poignant poems here, such as "Starvation Camp at Jaslo," and "Turn of the Century."

S's verse is very human in the sense that it reminds us of the smallness of daily existence and the saving grace that can be found in the 'whispering trees.'It also has a vision of historical integration, whereby the ghosts of unfortunate memories speak to us softly.

Wonderful poems on important things
PolishNobel winner Wislawa Szymborska was born in 1923. She's lived through a lot, and she has a highly developed social conscience. She is concerned about ordinary life, love, war, death, and meaning. In poem after beautifully translated poem, she shows her understanding of the things of this world, the mysteriousness of life, and the things that might matter the most.

I reread these poems after the events of September 11th and was astonished to findso much of use to me in thinking about the unthinkable, really.In "A Thank-You Note," she writes "I owe a lot/to those I do not love." In the incredible "Cat in an Empty Apartment" Szymborska takes a cat's point of view, noting "Something here isn't starting/at its usual time./Somethinghere isn't happening as it should./Somebody had been here and had been,/ and then had stubbornly disappeared/and now is stubbornly absent."

Szymborska knows that there are not only unimaginable horrors in the world, but also"miracles," small truths that are awesome and often wonderful- not because of any religious or magical event, but because they remind us, once again, of our humanity and of what good things might be possible. She treasures ordinary life,love, physicality - and communion. Her poems on love (and lovers) are beautiful, and beautifully simple.

She cautions against war in "The End and the Beginning," reminding the reader that "After every war/someone has to clean up./Things won't/straighten themselves up, after all." She wryly and trenchantly describes war's motives in "Hatred."Hatred, she insists, "is not like other feelings," and "gives birth to causes/which rouse it to life."

Szymborska's vision is one worth taking in, reflecting upon, and learning from. Current events aside, Szymborska's a terrific teacher of poetry.

This is a wonderful collection of poems. ... Read more

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In a selection from their ten-year correspondence from 1958 to 1968, the Trappist monk and the Polish writer debate the role of communism in the Cold War era, share advice about literature, and exchange contrasting views on the natural world.Amazon.com Review
These letters, written from 1958 to 1968, trace the growingfriendship and fascinating arguments between the Trappist monk ThomasMerton and Czeslaw Milosz, the poet who was later exiled from hisnative Poland, yet went on to win the 1980 Nobel Prize inliterature. The quest to make sense out of the human condition is thebridge between their worlds of literature and religion, and the twomen have a lot to say to one another. Is humanity inherently good? Canart save us from ourselves? Can war be justified? These letters areworth reading strictly for the quality of the writing and thethinking, but they are also valuable as literary biography andcultural history. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

4.1 stars:A candid, sharp, sane, respectful exchange
This volume consists of about a decade's worth of correspondence (1959-68) between the sometimes sagacious Trappist monk Thomas Merton and the Lithuanian-born Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz, later to become a Nobel laureate for Literature.Milosz was residing in Paris when the correspondence began, but he soon moved to Berkeley, California, to teach at the university.Merton was writing from Gethsemani, Kentucky, apart from one or two notes from his travel in 1968.

These are two alert minds, discussing everything from Communism to segregation, Catholicism to television, campus unrest to poetry.We see in Milosz a salubrious skepticism toward some of Merton's progressive enthusiasms, and even a sharp critique of those who would equate the flaws of American capitalism with the grave sins of Stalinism (Milosz uses the word "injustice" rather pointedly).During campus unrest at Berkeley, Milosz notes that the More Compassionate Than Thou seem to have compassion for everyone but "squares."Milosz is neither pacifist nor anarch, and in one or two instances provides a valuable counterpoint to Merton's views -- particularly on communism, which Milosz saw up close.

Interesting, to see the views of both men concur about the liturgical changes in the Catholic Church (not much enthusiasm for them); about confession, Milosz explains some "problems" he has had, and Merton gives us his views on what occurs during the Sacrament.There is much about poetry -- one or two poems by each author are included -- and about a magazine which Merton edited in his final days, "Monks Pond."

Mertonians will enjoy this volume, and even persons such as this reviewer, whose respect for Merton is not to be confused with discipleship or idolatry.Milosz has a sharp mind, able to discourse with breathtaking ease about Marx, Hegel, and the heresy of Socinianism (?!) -- about the plight of four Polish writers nicknamed Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta -- about the spirit of the Sixties & some of its less palatable side effects.I was inspired by "Striving Towards Being" to explore the poetry of Czeslaw Milosz, and was not disappointed.

A Moment of Clarity Captured
Czeslaw Miloscz and Thomas Merton have always been two of my favorite writers; until this book I had not known they were friends.This book celebrates that rare thing I remember from youth: a friendship of ideas between kindred spirits.These letters were written at the beginning of the 1960's -- a rare moment of cultural clarity on both sides of the "iron curtain."Forty years later, with the triumph of capitalism and our so-called "individualism" all but assured, with religious questions making the daily news, it is a good thing to step back and view the world's conversation as it was beginning, when there were two poets for whom ideas and ethics were living and breathing and more exciting than money.God, freedom, community -- they're all here as well as prophetic looks at mass media, individualism and other buzz words.Milosz and Merton really make them buzz.Read this. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from World Literature Today, published by University of Oklahoma on September 22, 1999. The length of the article is 5694 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Lost in the "Earth-Garden": The Exile of Czeslaw Milosz.(Nobel Prize winner, poet)(Critical Essay)
Author: Louis Iribarne
Publication: World Literature Today (Refereed)
Date: September 22, 1999
Publisher: University of Oklahoma
Volume: 73Issue: 4Page: 637

Article Type: Critical Essay

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Published to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of unbroken publication of The Polish Review, Fifty Years of Polish Scholarship contains selected articles from the premiere English-language quarterly dedicated to Polish studies.The selected articles cover all scholarly interests of this multi-disciplinary journal: history, literary criticism, painting, sculpture, sociology, philosophy and political science are all represented.Authors include: Stanisław Barańczak, Czesław Miłosz, Oskar Halecki, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Harold B. Segel, and others. ... Read more

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Chapters: Czesław Miłosz, Seamus Heaney, Joseph Brodsky, Jeremiah Curtin, Karolina Proniewska, Karl Dedecius, Stanisław Barańczak, Grazyna Miller, Leo Yankevich, Walter Whipple, Christopher Kasparek, Byambyn Rinchen, Marcel Weyland, Zygmunt Zaleski, Norbert Guterman, Stjepan Musulin, Andrej Žarnov, Shozo Yoshigami, Charles S. Kraszewski. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 90. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Seamus Heaney (born 13 April 1939, pronounced ) is an Irish poet, writer and lecturer who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995 and the T. S. Eliot Prize in 2006. He currently lives in Dublin. Heaney was born on 13 April 1939 at the family farmhouse called Mossbawn, between Castledawson and Toomebridge in Northern Ireland; he was the first of nine children. In 1953, his family moved to Bellaghy, a few miles away, which is now the family home. His father, Patrick Heaney, a local of Castledawson, was the eighth child of ten born to James and Sarah Heaney. Patrick was a farmer but his real commitment was to cattle-dealing, to which he was introduced by the uncles who had cared for him after the early death of his own parents. Heaney's mother came from the McCann family, whose uncles and relations were employed in the local linen mill and whose aunt had worked as a maid for the mill owner's family. The poet has commented on the fact that his parentage thus contains both the Ireland of the cattle-herding Gaelic past and the Ulster of the Industrial Revolution; he considers this to have been a significant tension in his background. Heaney initially attended Anahorish Primary School and when he was twelve-years-old, he won a scholarship to St. Columb's College, a Catholic boarding school situated in Derry. Heaney's brother, Christopher, was killed in a road accident at the ag...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=50920 ... Read more

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This expanded edition of Postwar Polish Poetry (which was originally published in 1965) presents 125 poems by 25 poets, including Czeslaw Milosz and other Polish poets living outside Poland.The stress of the anthology is on poetry written after 1956, the year when the lifting of censorship and the berakdown of doctrines provoked and explosion of new schools and talents.The victory of Solidarity in August 1980 once again opened new vistas for a short time; the coup of December closed that chapter. It is too early yet to predict the impact these events will have on the future of Polish poetry. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (4)

Disappointing, unsustained effort
I read this book in its Spanish translation, which was saluted by noted Spanish intellectuals such as Félix de Azúa, Rafael Argullol, and Juan Malpartida. After reading the book, I find myself wondering what was it exactly that they found so stimulating. This book consistently fails to deliver a sustained reflection on catharsis, healing or the relationship between the mind and the body. Every time it starts to get promising, it launches into an anecdote of the author's experiences as a physician, or a praise of John Paul II. The ideas that I found most compelling are those regarding Catharsis, Necessity, and Narcissus, for instance. They happen, however, to be quotations, almost always, from Roberto Calasso's magnificent essay on Greek myths, "Le nozze di Cadmo e Armonia." At least Szczeklik's book led me to that treasure. It didn't do much else.

A pensee, not a proof
n the forward to this book by the late, great poet Czeslaw Milosz, he writes "There is a mysterious connection between the human organism and some spiritual energies, thanks to which science alone cannot answer many of our questions about ourselves. So perhaps [Dr. Szczeklik]is right to use the word katharsis, or purification, and go back to ancient Greek drama . . . This way of referring back to the ancient world makes us think of the age-old continuity of the medical profession, which quite possibly derives its high standing from its permanent place on the border between life and death." As one might expect of a poet, that pretty much says it all. One of America's most prominent doctors strongly recommended this book to me; the doctor's wife is a well-known humanities scholar, so when he told me that this book is a deeply cultured reflection on the mysteries that a doctor confronts in his career I was eager to read the book. I've read it twice now, and I must say that the first time I was a little disappointed. Yes, it is an elegant, interesting, gracefully written meditation on the mysteries of life and death, the blankness of suffering and extinction and the human desire to envelop those experiences with meaning and morality. But it is not some kind of intellectually persuasive argument that takes one through a chain of unbroken logic. Thinking about the book and my reaction, I realised that the answer probably lies with Polanyi's concept of "tacit knowledge". Polanyi demonstrates that most of what we know we would struggle to communicate intellectually, from something as simple as a tennis swing to our judgments about the most difficult and stressful situations. The real value of this book, I have realised, is that Dr. Szezeklik, after a lifetime of healing and failing to heal, of saving lives and witnessing death, still believes in the spiritual and intellectual and emotional connections with illness and death, and he sincerely believes in the transcendent meaning of what we experience in life. This must have been what impressed the American doctor who told me about the book. CATHARSIS is not some kind of logical juggernaut--it is an elegant and cultured report back from the mysterious ground between life and death.

See medicine in a new way.
A review by Irene Smereck
I found Catharsis: On the Art of Medicine to be a very interesting, informative, and readable book on a subject, medicine, which is sometimes difficult for the ordinary reader.It offers many nuances not often covered in medical or general information.I am purchasing this book for my daughter, an E. R. physician.From conversations with her, I have seen that diagnosis is a very intuitive, almost magical art.Andrzej Szczeklik's book adds the weight of historical evidence to her personal anecdotes, helping me to see her, and all physicians, in a new light.

Why publish?
I must agree with a recent TLS review.which wonders why the U of Chicago ever published this book. IT IS NOT WORTH PURCHASING. ... Read more