Continued

by Piotr Sommer, August Kleinzahler (Contributor)

Spontaneous, colloquial, and anti-conventional verse from a celebrated Polish writer .

Continued is a selection of poems by Piotr Sommer, spanning his career to date. A kind of poetic utterance, these "talk poems" are devoid of any singsong quality yet faithfully preserve all the melodies and rhythms of colloquial speech. Events and objects of ordinary, everyday life are related and described by the speaker in a deliberately deadpan manner. Yet a closer look at the language he uses, with all its ironic inflections and subtle "intermeanings," reveals that the poem's "message" should be identified more with the way it is spoken than with what it says. The poems in this volume were translated into English with the help of other notable poets, writers, and translators, including John Ashbery, D.J. Enright, and Douglas Dunn.

Genres: Poetry

144 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Joe Shaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

I haven’t read much poetry by Polish authors but I really enjoyed Sommer’s exploration of family and local Polish life. His techniques follow an experimental form which I like to use in my own writing

[Rich · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not much my style. It's a little too quotidian for me, but I can appreciate its lyrical qualities.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hard to find language this fresh. Even in translation this outshines most American poetry, overburdened as it is with the unfortunate trappings of poetry.