What do you think?
Rate this book
Facing The River: A Nobel Laureate's Later Poems on Time, Imagination, and Human Experience
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.
84 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1994
3 people are currently reading
146 people want to read
About the author
Czesław Miłosz
311 books882 followersCzesław Miłosz was a Nobel Prize winning poet and author of Polish-Lithuanian heritage. He memorialised his Lithuanian childhood in a 1955 novel,
The Issa Valley
, and in the 1959 memoir
Native Realm
. After graduating from Sigismund Augustus Gymnasium in Vilnius, he studied law at Stefan Batory University and in 1931 he travelled to Paris, where he was influenced by his distant cousin Oscar Milosz, a French poet of Lithuanian descent and a Swedenborgian. His first volume of poetry was published in 1934.
After receiving his law degree that year, he again spent a year in Paris on a fellowship. Upon returning, he worked as a commentator at Radio Wilno, but was dismissed, an action described as stemming from either his leftist views or for views overly sympathetic to Lithuania. Miłosz wrote all his poetry, fiction, and essays in Polish and translated the Old Testament Psalms into Polish.
Awarded the 1980 Nobel Prize in Literature for being an author "who with uncompromising clear-sightedness voices man's exposed condition in a world of severe conflicts."
After receiving his law degree that year, he again spent a year in Paris on a fellowship. Upon returning, he worked as a commentator at Radio Wilno, but was dismissed, an action described as stemming from either his leftist views or for views overly sympathetic to Lithuania. Miłosz wrote all his poetry, fiction, and essays in Polish and translated the Old Testament Psalms into Polish.
Awarded the 1980 Nobel Prize in Literature for being an author "who with uncompromising clear-sightedness voices man's exposed condition in a world of severe conflicts."
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews
April 2, 2021
It feels almost futile to attempt a review that adequately does justice to the brilliance of Milosz’s poetic vision. He is so marvelously observant, cognizant, truthful, confessional, and always yearning and seeking through the efforts of his poetry to identify and address the ever-present and never-ceasing pain and suffering and also the longing of those afflicted by the horror and cruelty of history. His poetry is also a journey in seeking out answers to what life means and what memory signifies.
Therefore, it’s only best to allow Milosz’s poems to speak for themselves as he contemplates, confronts, and ultimately recreates the world with his peerless vision that exemplifies for us the concern and compassion we should all strive to have for each other as fellow citizens of the world:
From “At a Certain Age”:
We wanted to confess our sins but there were no takers.
White clouds refused to accept them, and the wind
Was too busy visiting the sea.
We did not succeed in interesting the animals.
From “Why”:
Have not the prayers of the humiliated been heard?
The bereft of their possessions, the slandered, the murdered, the tortured behind barbed wire?
Also from “Why”:
Fearful, they rub their eyes, knowing only that there is no limit to evil.
Enough to shout joyfully, and evil will return with force.
They still look for signs in the sky, for fiery circles, rods and crosses.
Remembering the word History, the second name of which is Annihilation.
From “Capri”:
And this river, together with heaps of garbage on its banks, with the beginning of pollution, flows through my youth, a warning against the longing for ideal places on the earth.
Yet, there, on that river, I experienced full happiness, a ravishment beyond any thought or concern, still lasting in my body.
Also from “Capri”:
Yes, but what about them, has not every one of them prayed to his God, begging: Save me!
From “The Garden of Earthly Delights: Hell”:
Thus it’s possible to conjecture that mankind exists
To provision and to populate Hell,
The name of which is duration. As to the rest,
Heavens, abysses, orbiting worlds, they just flicker a moment.
Time in Hell does not want to stop. It’s fear and boredom together
(Which, after all, happens). And we, frivolous,
Always in pursuit and always with hope,
Fleeting, just like our dances and dresses,
Let us beg to be spared from entering
A permanent condition.
From “Realism”:
Therefore I enter those landscapes
Under a cloudy sky from which a ray
Shoots out, and in the middle of dark plains
A spot of brightness glows. Or the shore
With huts, boats, and on yellowish ice
Tiny figures skating. All this
Is here eternally, just because once it was.
Splendor (certainly incomprehensible)
Touches a cracked wall, a refuse heap,
The floor of an inn, jerkins of the rustics,
A broom, and two fish bleeding on a board.
Rejoice! Give thanks! I raised my voice
To join them in their choral singing,
Amid their ruffles, collets, and silk skirts,
One of them already, who vanished long ago.
And our song soared up like smoke from a censer.
From “Undressing Justine”:
What dialogues go on between the body and soul?
In your land, good and evil were measured by the grave.
Who would remain faithful to it, who would not.
(In other words, a serious corrective
Was introduced into the tangle of motives and desires.)
Also from “Undressing Justine”:
And you know, feel, that this is how it looks, the end
Of one earthly country. Never again an echo
Of a song sung on the Niemen, the flight of swallows.
Never again fruit harvests in the village orchards.
The bars of cattle cars slam, one after another.
They carry you, by ancient trails, to a land of shadows and murders.
From “Wanda”:
To live and to know that the hour strikes,
And to wait quietly for one's turn.
Something needs to be done. Protest marches?
Wallowings, howlings, curses?
At least let there be a skeleton with a scythe,
Scissors of the Fates, or a star that plummets
When a soul departs. But there is nothing,
An obituary in two or three lines,
And then oblivion forever.
From “After Enduring”:
Yet it is helpful: to be able to imagine
That every person has a code instead of life
In an eternal storage room, a supercomputer of the universe.
We disintegrate into rot, dust, microfertilizers,
But that code or essence remains
And waits, till at last it takes flesh.
And also, as the new corporeality
Should be cleansed of evil and afflictions,
The notion of Purgatory enters the equation.
Not different is what the faithful in a country church
Repeat in chorus asking for life eternal.
And I with them. Not comprehending
Who I will be when I wake after enduring.
From “In Szetejnie”:
I did not expect, either, to learn that though bones fall into dust, and dozens of years pass, there is still the same presence.
Also from “In Szetejnie”:
Now I think one's work stands in the stead of happiness and becomes twisted by horror and pity.
Yet the spirit of this place must be contained in my work, just as it is contained in you who were led by it since childhood.
Garlands of oak leaves, the ave-bell calling the May service, I wanted to be good and not to walk among the sinners.
But now when I try to remember how it was, there is only a pit, and it’s so dark, I cannot understand a thing.
All we know is that sin exists and punishment exists, whatever philosophers would like us to believe.
If only my work were of use to people and of more weight than is my evil.
You alone, wise and just, would know how to calm me, explaining that I did as much as I could.
That the gate of the Black Garden closes, peace, peace, what is finished is finished.
Therefore, it’s only best to allow Milosz’s poems to speak for themselves as he contemplates, confronts, and ultimately recreates the world with his peerless vision that exemplifies for us the concern and compassion we should all strive to have for each other as fellow citizens of the world:
From “At a Certain Age”:
We wanted to confess our sins but there were no takers.
White clouds refused to accept them, and the wind
Was too busy visiting the sea.
We did not succeed in interesting the animals.
From “Why”:
Have not the prayers of the humiliated been heard?
The bereft of their possessions, the slandered, the murdered, the tortured behind barbed wire?
Also from “Why”:
Fearful, they rub their eyes, knowing only that there is no limit to evil.
Enough to shout joyfully, and evil will return with force.
They still look for signs in the sky, for fiery circles, rods and crosses.
Remembering the word History, the second name of which is Annihilation.
From “Capri”:
And this river, together with heaps of garbage on its banks, with the beginning of pollution, flows through my youth, a warning against the longing for ideal places on the earth.
Yet, there, on that river, I experienced full happiness, a ravishment beyond any thought or concern, still lasting in my body.
Also from “Capri”:
Yes, but what about them, has not every one of them prayed to his God, begging: Save me!
From “The Garden of Earthly Delights: Hell”:
Thus it’s possible to conjecture that mankind exists
To provision and to populate Hell,
The name of which is duration. As to the rest,
Heavens, abysses, orbiting worlds, they just flicker a moment.
Time in Hell does not want to stop. It’s fear and boredom together
(Which, after all, happens). And we, frivolous,
Always in pursuit and always with hope,
Fleeting, just like our dances and dresses,
Let us beg to be spared from entering
A permanent condition.
From “Realism”:
Therefore I enter those landscapes
Under a cloudy sky from which a ray
Shoots out, and in the middle of dark plains
A spot of brightness glows. Or the shore
With huts, boats, and on yellowish ice
Tiny figures skating. All this
Is here eternally, just because once it was.
Splendor (certainly incomprehensible)
Touches a cracked wall, a refuse heap,
The floor of an inn, jerkins of the rustics,
A broom, and two fish bleeding on a board.
Rejoice! Give thanks! I raised my voice
To join them in their choral singing,
Amid their ruffles, collets, and silk skirts,
One of them already, who vanished long ago.
And our song soared up like smoke from a censer.
From “Undressing Justine”:
What dialogues go on between the body and soul?
In your land, good and evil were measured by the grave.
Who would remain faithful to it, who would not.
(In other words, a serious corrective
Was introduced into the tangle of motives and desires.)
Also from “Undressing Justine”:
And you know, feel, that this is how it looks, the end
Of one earthly country. Never again an echo
Of a song sung on the Niemen, the flight of swallows.
Never again fruit harvests in the village orchards.
The bars of cattle cars slam, one after another.
They carry you, by ancient trails, to a land of shadows and murders.
From “Wanda”:
To live and to know that the hour strikes,
And to wait quietly for one's turn.
Something needs to be done. Protest marches?
Wallowings, howlings, curses?
At least let there be a skeleton with a scythe,
Scissors of the Fates, or a star that plummets
When a soul departs. But there is nothing,
An obituary in two or three lines,
And then oblivion forever.
From “After Enduring”:
Yet it is helpful: to be able to imagine
That every person has a code instead of life
In an eternal storage room, a supercomputer of the universe.
We disintegrate into rot, dust, microfertilizers,
But that code or essence remains
And waits, till at last it takes flesh.
And also, as the new corporeality
Should be cleansed of evil and afflictions,
The notion of Purgatory enters the equation.
Not different is what the faithful in a country church
Repeat in chorus asking for life eternal.
And I with them. Not comprehending
Who I will be when I wake after enduring.
From “In Szetejnie”:
I did not expect, either, to learn that though bones fall into dust, and dozens of years pass, there is still the same presence.
Also from “In Szetejnie”:
Now I think one's work stands in the stead of happiness and becomes twisted by horror and pity.
Yet the spirit of this place must be contained in my work, just as it is contained in you who were led by it since childhood.
Garlands of oak leaves, the ave-bell calling the May service, I wanted to be good and not to walk among the sinners.
But now when I try to remember how it was, there is only a pit, and it’s so dark, I cannot understand a thing.
All we know is that sin exists and punishment exists, whatever philosophers would like us to believe.
If only my work were of use to people and of more weight than is my evil.
You alone, wise and just, would know how to calm me, explaining that I did as much as I could.
That the gate of the Black Garden closes, peace, peace, what is finished is finished.
May 9, 2022
Milosz was still writing powerful poetry at this stage of his life\career. A lot of poems that are about death and growing old, very melancholy. Highlights ~ "At a Certain Age" "Why" "Capri" "Lithuania, After Fifty Two Years" "Biography Of an Artist" "The Garden Of Earthly Delights: Hell" "Realism" "To Allen Ginsberg" "Plato's Dialogues" "Retired" "Happenings Elsewhere" and "In Szetejnie".
August 19, 2015
3½★ This book of poetry by the Nobel Laureate Czeslaw Milosz probably deserves a higher rating. The poems clearly showed me some of the feelings of survivors guilt & bitterness that I guess Milosz felt upon returning home to what had become Lithuania in 1989. While I can sympathize with these feelings, I can't share them. I did find the bitter anger in "Sarajevo" to be quite moving. Several of the poems reflect upon religion, particularly Catholicism, which doesn't much interest me very much.
My favorites from this volume were "At a Certain Age", "Lithuania, After Fifty-Two Years" (especially the section entitled "Who?"), "Woe!" and "To Mrs. Professor in Defense of My Cat's Honour and Not Only". I found the text explaining the poem "Undressing Justine" fascinating.
I am interested in seeking out some other poetry by this poet; perhaps something published at a different time in his life will have a different mood & speak more to me.
My favorites from this volume were "At a Certain Age", "Lithuania, After Fifty-Two Years" (especially the section entitled "Who?"), "Woe!" and "To Mrs. Professor in Defense of My Cat's Honour and Not Only". I found the text explaining the poem "Undressing Justine" fascinating.
I am interested in seeking out some other poetry by this poet; perhaps something published at a different time in his life will have a different mood & speak more to me.
June 13, 2011
I reread this two nights ago. I'm still floored.
September 1, 2025
Czesław Miłosz resides among the short-list pantheon of my favorite poets. While his poems may be bourn of difficult subjects and harrowing, lamentable times and things (war, the cruelties that men can impinge upon one another), his poetry is never not a joy to read. It is storytelling; it is discovery; it predicted the admonitions of [another great poet] Mary Oliver about how to write poetry: first, be astonished by life. And in this, Miłosz is a neutron star.
This collection is in part a reflection and observation of Lithuania after Miłosz’s long exiled return. He recognizes things, but things are different…as is the way of the world.
…Which is exactly what we could say about poetry…because we could read a million poetry manuscripts on the same subject or theme and still not reach a consensus of similarity or the same vision or timbre or brilliance…or awe. In this poetic remembrance, we learn of the tiny short stories and fragments of Miłosz’s experience of Lithuania in his youth, of the people, institutions, landscapes… But knowing, knowing that each striving life is all too meagre an attempt at legacy…
Even his own life, dedicated to his art, he knows will never be enough or complete…
Knowing these frailties, the ever-alteration of our intentions, human cruelties and compassions—paradoxes of a single genus of animal—these incompetencies of a fleeting human life, Miłosz grasps what it is to be human in this world, and allows us to luxuriate in its flashing moments of brightness and emotion.
This collection is in part a reflection and observation of Lithuania after Miłosz’s long exiled return. He recognizes things, but things are different…as is the way of the world.
…Who is the one who seeing it,
Where does he come from, where will he disappear to,
Who is the one, instead of him,
Who will be seeing the same but not the same thing,
Because of a different pulsation of the blood?
…Which is exactly what we could say about poetry…because we could read a million poetry manuscripts on the same subject or theme and still not reach a consensus of similarity or the same vision or timbre or brilliance…or awe. In this poetic remembrance, we learn of the tiny short stories and fragments of Miłosz’s experience of Lithuania in his youth, of the people, institutions, landscapes… But knowing, knowing that each striving life is all too meagre an attempt at legacy…
…You remained alone in your defeat,
Lonely, not needed, going blind.
To bear it. And human beings bear it.
And what can be said is always too late.
Even his own life, dedicated to his art, he knows will never be enough or complete…
Did I fulfill what I had to, here, on earth?
[…]
The next time early I would search for wisdom.
[…]
With a view of the cities glowing below,
Or onto a stream, a bridge and old cedars,
I would give myself to one task only
Which then, however, could not be accomplished.
Knowing these frailties, the ever-alteration of our intentions, human cruelties and compassions—paradoxes of a single genus of animal—these incompetencies of a fleeting human life, Miłosz grasps what it is to be human in this world, and allows us to luxuriate in its flashing moments of brightness and emotion.
August 6, 2019
The first book Milosz wrote after he began returning regularly to Poland but before he moved back. This is filled with nostalgia for things he was seeing, particularly in Lithuania, for the first time in over half a century. And it feels as if it is an old man close to death who is reflecting on all this, trying to come to some understanding of his role in history -- but, of course, that is in almost all of Milosz. He couldn't have known that he would live for more than 15 years yet and write many more poems.
Several of the poems were written in sentences, as aphorisms that combine to make a certain picture of a time or place. These do have the feel of the "quotable quote," yet they are quotable and do feel wise. Here's one good example from "Capri," the very end of the poem -- "Hearing the immense call of the Particular, despite the earthly law that sentences memory to extinction." Just hit me typing this out that perhaps CM was doing something we've come to call the "lyrical essay," although for him the lyric still predominated. And here's another from the next poem "Report": "For in every one of us a mad rabbit thrashes and a wolf pack howls, so that we are afraid it will be heard by others." And he has a couple of pieces that mix prose and verse, that seemed to mix those two obsessions, literature and history even in the form he chose.
He did become more of a Catholic as he grew older, I think, and that made some of his judgements more exclusive than they were earlier. There is, however, a lovely homage to Allen Ginsberg in here, and that was great to see. They were very different poets, very different people, yet it's good to see the connections and the respect.
Several of the poems were written in sentences, as aphorisms that combine to make a certain picture of a time or place. These do have the feel of the "quotable quote," yet they are quotable and do feel wise. Here's one good example from "Capri," the very end of the poem -- "Hearing the immense call of the Particular, despite the earthly law that sentences memory to extinction." Just hit me typing this out that perhaps CM was doing something we've come to call the "lyrical essay," although for him the lyric still predominated. And here's another from the next poem "Report": "For in every one of us a mad rabbit thrashes and a wolf pack howls, so that we are afraid it will be heard by others." And he has a couple of pieces that mix prose and verse, that seemed to mix those two obsessions, literature and history even in the form he chose.
He did become more of a Catholic as he grew older, I think, and that made some of his judgements more exclusive than they were earlier. There is, however, a lovely homage to Allen Ginsberg in here, and that was great to see. They were very different poets, very different people, yet it's good to see the connections and the respect.
October 13, 2022
Milosz wrote these poems when he moved back to his native Lithuania toward the end of his life. Deeply introspective, Milosz reflects on his life, failures, and successes. These poems are freighted with the weight of WW2 and the difficulties of the 20th century. Indeed, many of these poems are memories of pre-war Lithuania, intended to chronicle ways of life that could have been had not Lithuania been so ravaged by war. As his life comes to a close, he wrote these memories/poems down so that they would (and have) outlast him. And yet, though this is heavy, he writes with a sense of playfulness, a light pen, and genuine levity. As always, I'm glad to have read his poems.
This collection has a number of very nice poems ("At a Certain Age," "City of My Youth," "Realism," and "One More Contradiction" immediately come to mind). My favorite, though, is "A Meadow":
It was a riverside meadow, lush, from before the hay harvest,
On an immaculate day in the sun of June.
I searched for it, found it, recognized it.
Grasses and flowers grew there familiar in my childhood.
With half-closed eyelids I absorbed luminescence.
And the scent garnered me, all knowing ceased.
Suddenly I felt I was disappearing and weeping with joy.
This collection has a number of very nice poems ("At a Certain Age," "City of My Youth," "Realism," and "One More Contradiction" immediately come to mind). My favorite, though, is "A Meadow":
It was a riverside meadow, lush, from before the hay harvest,
On an immaculate day in the sun of June.
I searched for it, found it, recognized it.
Grasses and flowers grew there familiar in my childhood.
With half-closed eyelids I absorbed luminescence.
And the scent garnered me, all knowing ceased.
Suddenly I felt I was disappearing and weeping with joy.
Read
February 27, 2024Milosz's poems here possess the kinds of insight and perspective that come from living almost a century and seeing radical changes occur throughout life. In his poem, Capri, Milosz writes of taking a horse and buggy three days from one town to another as a child and then flying Luftansa from San Fransisco to Rome as an adult. Quite the juxtaposition. But that is just a superficial dichotomy. What really shines in this collection, at least for me, is how Milosz contrasts little events with immense importance, and tremendous suffering with commonality. He has a reserved respect for deity here that I appreciate. Almost like he loves god because he is afraid not to, even though a part of him would prefer to see the godliness in humanity and leave it at that.
There is sometimes a tendency to eschew the ideas of "old" people (Milosz was 80 years old when he rote this), but I enjoyed his aged perspective in this book. There was a good amount of nostalgia in this collection. The River in the title is one that flows through his childhood hometown, which he returns to after multiple decades have passed. But the nostalgia is imbued with the hard earned wisdom of a life spent mastering a craft, a craft dedicated to revealing truth, insofar as poetry aims to do so.
There is sometimes a tendency to eschew the ideas of "old" people (Milosz was 80 years old when he rote this), but I enjoyed his aged perspective in this book. There was a good amount of nostalgia in this collection. The River in the title is one that flows through his childhood hometown, which he returns to after multiple decades have passed. But the nostalgia is imbued with the hard earned wisdom of a life spent mastering a craft, a craft dedicated to revealing truth, insofar as poetry aims to do so.
August 13, 2024
Another from my uncle, this collection had that Eastern European melancholia that I have really loved in my extremely narrow experience of poetry. Miłosz has such a diverse yet cohesive vision and voice for his experience that made every poem felt fresh but maintained that sad/content passage of time type tone. Capri was excellent, to my daimonion, realism, one more contradiction, and In Szetejnie, among others were some of my favorites. Also, the unique composition of Undressing Justine and Wanda was really something I hadn’t seen before, but loved.
Overall I really enjoyed this.
Overall I really enjoyed this.
November 6, 2020
Późny Miłosz wracający do miejsc swojego dzieciństwa, postaci, z którymi zetknął go los oraz rozważań o naturze dobra, zła czy Boga. Wielki dar mówienia o rzeczach trudnych w sposób dosyć lekki i w zasadzie zrozumiały, nawet jeśli na końcu jest konkluzja, że tak naprawdę nie wiemy nic
Read
February 17, 2021I am not a poetry reader normally, just picked this up for a reading challenge.
Poems I particularly liked:
Realism
You Whose Name
To Mrs. Professor
The themes in his poetry of looking back at a changed place and of assessing his own life and work touched me.
Poems I particularly liked:
Realism
You Whose Name
To Mrs. Professor
The themes in his poetry of looking back at a changed place and of assessing his own life and work touched me.
October 20, 2021
I really liked this. Reminds me of Billy Collins, but darker. Understandable considering where Milosz comes from and the times in which he lived. Still, wonderful. Some of these stopped me in my tracks and I just had to ruminate over them for a while.
March 30, 2020
I really enjoyed this collection, specifically "Woe", "Report" and "Dear Mrs. Professor in Defense of My Cat's Honor and Not Only"
September 15, 2020
Wonderful collection.
April 1, 2023
😻 Loved the one about the cat 😻
October 16, 2024
Beautiful, evocative collection. A great poet looking back on their life, reconnecting with parts of childhood, pondering the human condition from a lifetime of experience.
January 4, 2025
Poetic reflections of a life lived. Milosz puts his being on the scales.
" If my work were of use to people and of more weight than is my evil. "
" If my work were of use to people and of more weight than is my evil. "
August 5, 2025
Amazing book of poems! A must read.
November 11, 2019
Well, surprisingly, I've stumbled on another Nobel poet that, I must say, I thoroughly enjoyed reading. Not quite as accessible as Karlfeldt but very real. Written at age 78, on the occasion of his return to his boyhood home in Lithuania after 50 years.
August 12, 2023
I have never been a fan of poems since I rarely come across a collection that reaches out to me. Yet somehow, this collection of poems does? I loved reading every bit of it. The poems are mostly quiet, reminiscent of the past — childhood memories attached to a place, a river, people he looked up to, people whom I think left a lasting mark on him, vivid dreams, regrets. It felt like reading a compilation of all his memorable encounters and memories. I also love his poems made as a reflection on his poem writing, benchmarked to those who came before, and what he thinks it may all come down to, in the end. This one truly felt personal and nostalgic, and maybe that's why it hits just the spot 💚💚.
Read
July 19, 2011After Leopardi, this is the best book of poetry that I have (re-)read this year. I picked this up again immediately after finishing 'Witness of Poetry' and I simply could not believe how much I loved the book. Historical amd humane, sensual and spiritual - Milosz was one of the giants of the last century. 'Capri' is a particular favourite and his tribute to Allen Ginsberg provides fresh reasons to enjoy the American's work ('While your blasphemous howl still resounds in a neon desert where the human tribe wanders, sentenced to unreality.'). 'A Hall', 'Lithuania, After Fifty-Two Years'...This is a magnificent collection.
May 1, 2012
I was afraid this one was going to be over my head, and so was pleasantly surprised to find it accessible. I got the sense of a man caught between two worlds, east and west, stuck with the sense that neither one of them is permanent in either a personal or a social sense. (Let alone political.) The result was that the life of eastern Europe, which is foreign enough to me, didn't feel any more or less uncomfortable than life of the place I was born in.
Milosz is such a wistful poet. Between the worlds he describes, we glimpse a third world, maybe a middle or blended one, that rises above the world as we find it when we kick off the covers each morning.
Milosz is such a wistful poet. Between the worlds he describes, we glimpse a third world, maybe a middle or blended one, that rises above the world as we find it when we kick off the covers each morning.
May 25, 2014
The poems here get better as you go along. It's great knowing the translations were approved and in some cases written by the author. His writing as he looks back on life as an old man, there are some immortal lines here. Any poetry lover should check this out.
February 3, 2008
Gorgeous poems. And an important narrative of his experiences from WWII to the end of the 20th century.
August 29, 2008
Hooray for marvelous language!
October 3, 2008
Lovely book. The work of an old man, with the perspective of time and a life lived. A wonderful sense of weariness and calm.
October 27, 2008
Poems to make your heart race, if you are a big nerd like me.
January 6, 2011
Beautiful, haunting, but also very earthy and real. I particularly like the titular poem itself.
June 14, 2011
Back to the library too soon with this one.
I liked a few of the ones I read, but I like Milosz better as an editor and translator than as a poet in this particular collection.
I liked a few of the ones I read, but I like Milosz better as an editor and translator than as a poet in this particular collection.
June 29, 2013
3.5 stars.
Favorites:
Report
City of My Youth
Realism
You Whose Name
A Hall
After Enduring
Least favorite:
The Meadow
Favorites:
Report
City of My Youth
Realism
You Whose Name
A Hall
After Enduring
Least favorite:
The Meadow
Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews