Selected Poems: 1931 - 2004

by Czesław Miłosz, Seamus Heaney (Translator)

Selected Poems: 1931 - 2004 celebrates Czeslaw Milosz's lifetime of poetry. Widely regarded as one of the greatest poets of our time, Milosz is a master of expression and probing inquiry. Life opened for Czeslaw Milosz at a crossroads of civilizations in northeastern Europe. This was less a melting pot than a torrent of languages and ideas, where old folk traditions met Catholic, Protestant, Judaic, and Orthodox rites. What unfolded next around him was a century of catastrophe and madness: two world wars, revolutions, invasions, and the murder of tens of millions, all set to a cacophony of hymns, gunfire, national anthems, and dazzling lies. In the thick of this upheaval, wide awake and in awe of living, dodging shrapnel, imprisonment, and despair, Milosz tried to understand both history and the moment, with humble respect for the suffering of each individual. He read voraciously in many languages and wrote masterful poetry that, even in translation, is infused with a tireless spirit and a penetrating insight into fundamental human dilemmas and the staggering yet simple truth that "to exist on the earth is beyond any power to name." Unflinching, outspoken, timeless, and unsentimental, Milosz digs through the rubble of the past, forging a vision -- and a warning -- that encompasses both pain and joy. "His intellectual life," writes Seamus Heaney, "could be viewed as a long single combat with shape-shifting untruth."

Genres: Poetry, Polish Literature, Poland, Classics, Fiction, Literature, 20th Century

304 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1973

About the author

Czesław 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."

Reviews

[Steven Godin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some of the most powerful poems I've read in recent times, and had I known Czeslaw Milosz was going to be this astounding, and this affecting, I would have gone with the larger volume of Collected Poems, as this selection, as good as it was, was a little on the short side. These poems were deep, meaningful, and written with great intensity, with some of the longer poems quite simply being masterpieces.

A remarkable poet, a genius of a poet, and fully deserving of the Nobel Prize in Literature.

My Favourites were -

Lessons
What Does It Mean
Rivers Grow Small
And The City Stood In Its Brightness
Statue Of A Couple
Dedication
A Song On The End Of The World
The Spirit Of The Laws
Throughout Our Lands
Whiteness

[Edita · Rating 4 out of 5]

We learned so much, this you know well :
how, gradually, what could not be taken away
is taken. People, countrysides.
And the heart does not die when one thinks it should,
we smile, there is tea and bread on the table.

[Dhanaraj Rajan · Rating 4 out of 5]

FOUR AND HALF STARS...

I would have added another half star had I known better some of the Polish settings and authors that Milosz mentioned in the poems.

A Difficulty:

I always have trouble writing review for poetry collections. I am more happy to give a poem or two as an example and thus end my review. With this collection too, I will follow the same technique only with a slight variation. That is, taking the creative liberty to my advantage I will resurrect Milosz and I will try to have a lively dialogue with him.

The Dialogue with Milosz:

Dhanaraj: I have just read some of your poems and I loved them immensely. Can you tell me about your vocation as a poet and your views on poetry?

Milosz:

I am no more than a secretary of the invisible thing
That is dictated to me and a few others.
Secretaries, mutually unknown, we walk the earth
Without much comprehension. Beginning a phrase in the middle
Or ending it with a comma. And how it all looks when completed
Is not up to us to inquire, we won't read it anyway.

Dhanaraj: Tell me about your beliefs? I think you had tough time to maintain your Faith. Your initial stand on faith reveals much doubt and the late poems reveal a reconciled heart.

Milosz:

1.

We and the flowers throw shadows on the earth.
What has no shadow has no strength to live.

2.

I am only a man: I need visible signs.
I tire easily, building the stairway of abstraction.

3.

How could I
how could I
do such things
living in this hideous world
subject to its laws
toying with its laws.
I need God, so that He may forgive me
I need a God of mercy.

Dhanaraj: Suppose if there is no God??????????????

Milosz:

If there is no God,
Not everything is permitted to man.
He is still his brother's keeper
And he is not permitted to sadden his brother,
By saying that there is no God.

Dhanaraj: Where is the origin of evil?

Milosz:

All conceivable nonsense,
All evil
Stems from our struggle to dominate our neighbour.

Dhanaraj: What is life? How can we live better?

Milosz:

1.

Life was given but unattainable.

2.

Unexpressed, untold.
But how?
The shortness of life,
the years quicker and quicker,
not remembering whether it happened in this or that autumn.

3.

And there neither is nor was. Just the moment eternal.

I end my dialogue with Milosz here for not wanting to disclose many other poems. I respect Copyright of the author.

P.S. The poems I have given as examples are NOT the primary poems of Milosz in this collection. There are some excellent poems on the Horror of World War, His love for his Homeland and Mother Tongue, Poetry, The use of Reason, Marxism/Materialism, History, etc. Go for his collection of poetry and you will be rewarded with well cut out diamonds, that will strike you with their artistic splendour.

Also, this Penguin Edition has the wonderful Introduction by Seamus Heaney.

Finally: TBR Shelf is getting fatter for Milosz had written many books and this is my first.

[Melanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

In 'Ars Poetica?' Milosz eloquently states 'The purpose of poetry is to remind us how difficult it is to remain just one person, for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors, and invisible guests come in and out at will'. I think his poetry does more than see us compromised by these exchanges.

His confessions are whimsical, he celebrates his 'my-ness', and his heart that 'holds more than speech does'.

Like the best poets he raises more questions than answers, and in doing so reveals all the more.

[Anima · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love
"Love means to learn to look at yourself
The way one looks at distant things
For you are only one thing among many.
And whoever sees that way heals his heart,
Without knowing it, from various ills—
A bird and a tree say to him: Friend.

Then he wants to use himself and things
So that they stand in the glow of ripeness.
It doesn’t matter whether he knows what he serves:
Who serves best doesn’t always understand. "

Meaning

"When I die, I will see the lining of the world.
The other side, beyond bird, mountain, sunset.
The true meaning, ready to be decoded.
What never added up will add Up,
What was incomprehensible will be comprehended.
- And if there is no lining to the world?
If a thrush on a branch is not a sign,
But just a thrush on the branch? If night and day
Make no sense following each other?
And on this earth there is nothing except this earth?
- Even if that is so, there will remain
A word wakened by lips that perish,
A tireless messenger who runs and runs
Through interstellar fields, through the revolving galaxies,
And calls out, protests, screams. "

[H.A. Leuschel · Rating 5 out of 5]

A surprising first read for me. Milosz's poems are diverse, intricate and playful. I very much enjoyed reading this collection of poems and I'm sure I'll return to some of them in the future for a re-read.
Here's a little taster:

'The purpose of poetry is to remind us
how difficult it is to remain just one person,
for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors,
and invisible guests come in and out at will.'

[Alisa Žarkova · Rating 5 out of 5]

Esi stipri naktis. Tavin neprasiskverbia
Nei lūpų liepsnos, nei ryto debesų dulsva,
Kur sapno pakraštys tamsus, ten girdis tavo balsas,
Tu taip švyti, lyg artintųs diena. <...>

***

Tėvas bibliotekoje

Aukšta kakta, o viršum jos sušiurę
Plaukai, ant jų pro langą krinta saulė.
Ir viskas kuria jam pūkų karūną,
Kuomet jis knygą paima į saują.

Raštuotais rūbais kaip anas būrėjas
Kimiu balsu jis užkeikimą burba,
Kokie stebuklai, kas toj knygoj dėjos
Patirs, kurį pats Dievas mokė burti.

***

Tikėjimas

Tikime tąsyk, kada pamatom
Lapą beplaukiant arba rasos lašą
Ir žinom – jie yra neišvengiami.
Kad ir mūs akys aptemtų, mirgėtų,
Žemėj tai bus, o daugiau nieko kito,
Lašą tolyn nuplukdys upės vandenys.

Tikime taipgi, kada susižeidę
Koją į akmenį, žinom, kad akmenys
Tam ir yra – nusimušti kojelėmis.
Žvelkit, kaip medis meta šešėlius,
Metam šešėlį ir mes, o ir gėlės,
Jei nė šešėlio, tai būti nėr galios.

***

Viltis

Viltis yra, kuomet kas nors tiki,
Kad žemė ne joks sapnas – gyvas kūnas,
O akys, ausys, pirštai nemeluoja.
Visi daiktai iš mano pažinimo
Yra kaip sodas, arkoj atsistojus.

Įeiti nevalia. Tačiau, ko gero,
Jei tik giliau ir įdėmiau stebėsi,
Tau atsivers žvaigždė, gėlyno keras
Pasaulio sodo slapiame pavėsy.

Kai kas dar kalba, kad akis – tai triukas,
Kad nieko nėr, o mums tik taip atrodo,
Bet tiems jokia viltis nebegalioja.
Jie mano, žmogui nugarą atsukus,
Pasaulis visas liaujas egzistuoti,
Tarsi ranka nutraukė nelaboji.

***

Europos vaikas

<...> Tegu žodžiai tavo reiškia ne pačia prasme
Bet tuo ko nepaisant jie pavartoti.<...>

***

Įvadas

Gimtoji kalba paprasta ir skaidri tebus.
Kad kiekvienas, kurs išgirs žodį,
Paregėtų obelis, upę, kelio vingį,
Tartum vasaros žaibo blyksnio nutviekstus.

Tačiau kalba negali būti vien atvaizdas
Ir nieks daugiau. Per amžius ją kerėjo
Ritmo bangavimas, sapnas, gaida.
Beginklę aplenkia sausas, dygus pasaulis.

Ne vienas šiandien klausia, ką reiškia
Ta gėda, kai skaitai eilėraščių knygą
Tarsi autorius, siekdamas tikslų neaiškių,
Kreiptųsi į blogesniąją prigimties dalį,
Šalin mintį stumdamas ir apgaudamas jąją

Poezija dar tebemoka patikti paskaninta
Sąmoju, juokdario pokštais, satyra.
Tada įvertinamas ir jos didus žavesys.
Tačiau tie mūšiai, kurių kaina – gyvybė.
Verda prozoje. Ne visad taip buvo.

Ir lig šiol neišpažintas yr gailumas.
Romanai, traktatai tarnauja, bet neišlieka.
Nes daugiau sveria viena gera strofa
Nei prakaituotų puslapių sunki našta.

***

Ars poetica?

<...> Iš poezijos tiek naudos, kad mums primena nuolat,
kaip sunku išlikti yra tuo pačiu asmeniu,
nes namai atviri mūs, duryse jokio rakto,
o neregimieji svečiai įeina, išeina.<...>

***

Kad parašytum gilų eilėraštį, reikia žinoti daugiau, nei jame išreikšta. Sąmonė aplenkia bet kokias išraiškos priemones. <...>

***

Labirintas. Kad dieną renčiamas iš žodžių, muzikos garsų, tapybos linijų ir spalvų, skulptūros ir architektūros luitų.
Toks amžinas, toks įdomus žiūrinėti, ir jei jau kas į jį panyra, tam nebereikia pasaulio, jis yra tvirtovė, sumūryta ginčiai nuo pasaulio. Ir turbūt didžiausia nuostaba: kai jau imi mėgautis juo pačiu, jis išsisklaido tarsi rūmai, nuausti iš miglos. Ir tik siekis išeiti anapus, kažkur, kiton pusėn jį išlaiko.

***

Nuo pat jaunystės žodžiais mėginau sugaut tikrovę – tokią, apie kurią galvojau vaikščiodamas žmonių sukurto miesto gatvėmis, bet niekad man tai nepavyko, todėl kiekvieną savo eilėraštį laikau neatlikto darbo pradmenimis. Anksti atradau, jog kalba ir tai, kas esam iš tikrųjų, nesutampa, o knygos ir laikraštinė spauda maitina kažkokį didelį tarytum. Ir kiekvienas mano bandymas pasakyti kažką tikra pasibaigdavo vienodai – lyg atsiskyrus nuo bandos avis aš būdavau įvaromas į formos aptvarą.

***

Kokia poezija bus ateityje, ta, apie kurią mąstau, bet kurios jau nebeatpažinsiu? Žinau, kad ji galima, nes pažinau trumpų akimirkų, kai ji jau beveik kūrėsi po manąja plunksna, bet tuojau pat ir pranykdavo. Kūno ritmai – širdies plakimas, pulsas, prakaitavimas, mėnesinių kraujas, spermos klampumas, poza šlapinantis, žarnyno judėjimas – poezijoje niekada nebus atskirti nuo iškilių dvasios poreikių, ir mūsų dvilypumas atras savąją formą neatsižadėdamas vienos arba kitos sferos.

***

Lanka

Tai buvo paupio lanka, vešli, dar nešienauta,
Skaisčiausiąją birželio saulės dieną.
Aš jos ieškojau visą amžių, radau, atpažinau,
Ten tarpo žolės ir gėlės, kadaise pažįstamos vaikui.
Pro primerktus vokus siurbiau tą šviesumą,
Ir kvapas mane apsėmė, bet koks žinojimas liovės.
Staiga pajutau: išnykstu ir raudu iš laimės.

***

Allenui Ginsbergui

Kadangi neieškome to, kas tobula, ieškome to, kas išlieka iš nuolatinio siekimo.

***

Ko išmokau iš Jeanne‘os Hersch?

Kad žmonių veiklos hierarchijoje menas yra aukščiau nei
filosofija, tačiau prasta filosofija gali pagadinti meną.

***

Poetui mirus

Išeidamas jis užtrenkė gramatikos varčias.
Dabar ieškokit jo žodyno miškuose ir giriose.

***

Po

Nusimečiau požiūrius, įsitikinimus, tikėjimus,
nuomones, aksiomas, taisykles,
nuostatas ir įpročius. <...>

***

Jeigu nėra

Jeigu Dievo nėra,
tai ne viskas dar žmogui leista.
Jis yra savo brolio sargas,
ir neturi jis liūdinti savojo brolio,
aiškint, girdi, Dievo nėra.

***

Orfėjas ir Euridikė

<...> Lyriniai poetai
Paprastai turi ledines širdis, jis tai žinojo.
Tai beveik sąlyga. Meno tobulumas dažnai
Gaunamas už tokį luošumą. <..>

***

Įgulos miestas

<..> Burzgė kino aparatas ir švietė svajonę
Apie Gretą Garbo ir Rudolfą Valentino.<..>

[Old Man JP · Rating 5 out of 5]

My God!! It doesn't get any better than this! At least that's my opinion. This is a book I first read over fifteen years ago and was completely blown away with but, as the years have passed, it had faded in my memory. At the time, I had been obsessed with reading Milosz's essays, of which I've read most, but I decided to check out his poetry since that was what he was known for. I found out why I liked his essays so much, it was because they were really just another form of his long narrative poetry. I've read many of the great writers in my, almost, seventy-five years but few have mastered the art of writing as well as Milosz.

[olga · Rating 3 out of 5]

gadu gadu stary dziadu but in a good way

[Scott Bielinski · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice collection of poems. I appreciated the chronological arrangement, which shows Milosz's growing concern about the vocation of a poet (his own) in a century of Nazis, nuclear weapons, and anomie. Words like luminescence, translucence, and images of light, scattered from poems in the 1930s to the early 2000s, reveal his inner religious musings and theological struggles. Milosz is a really great poet to help one contemplate what *is.* If you want to see the world and its depth more clearly, read Milosz.

Here's one of my favorite poems from the collection, entitled "Gift":

A day so happy.
Fog lifted early, I worked in the garden.
Hummingbirds were stopping over honeysuckle flowers.
There was no thing on earth I wanted to possess.
I knew no one worth my envying him.
Whatever evil I had suffered, I forgot.
To think that once I was the same man did not embarrass me.
In my body I felt no pain.
When straightening up, I saw the blue sea and sails.

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rather repetitive: you can only read someone piss and moan about a God they can't fully believe in but can't stop using as a stick to beat others with so many times.

Surprised 'Return to Krakow in 1880' didn't make the cut.

[Gabriela Solis · Rating 5 out of 5]

A medida que se envejece, una puede descubrirse más conservadora respecto a ciertas cosas. No creo que eso esté intrínsecamente mal, siempre y cuando no se cometa la imbecilidad de volverse panista o unirse al FRENA. Yo he descubierto que mi lado conservador sale a la superficie cuando se trata de poesía. Ya me lanzarán tomatazos los hiper entendidos en el arte hiper contemporáneo, pero me descoloca que hoy se tomen en serio cosas como los “poemojis” o los “poemas” que hablan de perrear hasta abajo (nada contra perrear hasta abajo, todo contra intentar hacerlo pasar por poesía) cuando hubo un tiempo no tan lejano donde se consideraba que los poetas eran los médiums por los cuales hablaba el espíritu del tiempo. Czeslaw Milosz pertenece a esos poetas.

Milosz –lituano de nacimiento, pero criado en Polonia– vivió todo el horror de su siglo: tenía 7 años cuando terminó la Primera Guerra Mundial y vivió la Segunda en la Varsovia ocupada por los nazis. Su poesía trata, en gran medida, de comprender este mundo inclemente y de interrogarse qué papel tiene Dios en él. Su poema “Dawns” dice:
“One life is not enough / I’d like to live twice on this sad planet , / In lonely cities, in starved villages / To look at evil, at the decay of bodies, / And probe the laws to which the time was subject, / Time that howled above us like a wind”.

También era un apasionado del lenguaje: hablaba polaco, ruso, lituano, inglés, francés y hebreo. Sentía una deuda especial con su lengua natal, el polaco, en la cual escribía la mayoría de sus poemas y a la cual le dedica varios de éstos también: “Faithful mother tongue, / you are a tongue of the debased, / of the unreasonable, hating themselves / even more than they hate other nations, / a tongue of informers, / a tongue of the confused, / ill with their own innocence”. Aprendió hebreo para traducir los salmos. Perfeccionó su lituano antes de morir, “por si era la lengua que se hablaba en el Cielo”. Como si cada lengua encerrara una parte de la esencia de lo humano, una parte del código para descifrar el mundo.

Milosz estaba convencido de que el dolor del mundo servía para educar a la inteligencia y convertirla en un alma. Y su forma para expresar el alma era la poesía, no para forjarse un nombre en la posteridad, sino para encontrar el orden, el ritmo y la forma; lo opuesto al caos y la nada. Poco antes de su muerte escribió: “I strongly believe in the passive role of the poet. The poet receives a poem as a gift from forces unknown to him, and he should always remember that the work he has created is not due to his merit. His mind and his will must, nonetheless, be ever alert, sensitive to everything that surrounds him”. Esa ética, completamente opuesta a la de nuestros días donde gracias a las redes sociales creemos que tenemos algo importante que decir y nos enojamos si nos roban un sesudo tuit, me hace suspirar.

[Mariano Cascio · Rating 4 out of 5]

Debido a varias obligaciones académicas en el pasado mes, no tuve demasiado tiempo para centrarme a leer una novela. Por lo tanto, fui leyendo lentamente (en el poco tiempo libre que disponía) distintos poemas de esta selección de Czesław Miłosz.
Lo interesante de Miłosz en su aproximación hacia la poesía es la versatilidad como principal herramienta, logrando tornarla en una gran virtud. Vale la pena aclarar que vivió cerca de 94 años, desde los comienzos de la primera década del siglo XX hasta el 2004; expresando con gran contundencia la existencia del hombre característico del siglo XX. Existen varias vertientes en la obra de Miłosz, al igual que existen varias caras de Miłosz- Lo metafísico, religioso o quizás simplemente la pregunta existencial son materias que todavía valen la pena ahondar.
En muchos de sus poemas se ve como va hilando sobre el alma polaca, el alma muchas veces descontrolada y llena de complejos. El alma capaz de realizar extrañas hazañas heroicas, aunque bastante insoportable a diario.
Ciertamente me gustó, me parece enteramente distinto a cualquier poeta y muy centrado en temas vitales del pasado pero que inevitablemente siguen más que vigentes.

[Haley · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Not that I want to be a god or a hero. Just to change into a tree, grow for ages, not hurt anyone."

I can't believe it has taken me this long to pick up Milosz. Although I regret not finding him sooner, the time in which he came into my life was perfect. I am now buying every book ever touched by him and adding him to my favorite poetry shelf. IT feels silly even giving a review.... it's MILOSZ. PS the Seamus Heaney introduction is breathtaking.

[Gijs Limonard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful collection; much to be savored here; from ‘ars poetica’; the purpose of poetry is to remind us / how difficult it is to remain just one person / for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors / and invisible guests come in and out at will

[Tynka · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.2, jestem pozytywnie zaskoczona

[James Henderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

His poetry runs the gamut of feeling and thought, of nature and man, of beauty and the truth of poetry. The author of The Captive Mind, a great statement about the effects of totalitarianism, Czeslaw Milosz is even better when his daimon inspires him to write poetry. This selection covers his work over more than seven decades beginning with his early days in Poland, underground during the War, and beyond into his time in America. His survival, overcoming the ordeal of war and suppression gives his poetry a nobility that seems palpable on every page.

The following poem resonates with me along with others of his best from the Selected Poems. Just as he fought the battle of ideas, the books are durable soldiers going into battle with a simple "We are,"; confident in the knowledge that they are "more durable than we are". The reference to the dismal twentieth century with its fires and flame is tempered by the optimism of the closing: "Derived from people, but also from radiance, heights."


And Yet the Books

And yet the books will be there on the shelves, separate beings,
That appeared once, still wet
As shining chestnuts under a tree in autumn,
And, touched, coddled, began to live
In spite of fires on the horizon, castles blown up,
Tribes on the march, planets in motion.
“We are,” they said, even as their pages
Were being torn out, or a buzzing flame
Licked away their letters. So much more durable
Than we are, whose frail warmth
Cools down with memory, disperses, perishes.
I imagine the earth when I am no more:
Nothing happens, no loss, it's still a strange pageant,
Women's dresses, dewy lilacs, a song in the valley.
Yet the books will be there on the shelves, well born,
Derived from people, but also from radiance, heights.

[Samuel Snoek-Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

Outstanding. Not every poem is perfect, but every poem is beautiful, and some are so moving they floored me, made me hiss an inhalation and hold my breath just to contain the reflection, the emotion, the impact. Milosz is amazing.

[Anna Mackay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Comforting in a time (as all times are, I guess) of pain, confusion, grief, and above all a sense of foreboding. Czeslaw illustrates over his life a kind of retrospective of a Cassandra: the horrible future approaches and it seems no one notices. He also writes nature incredibly well.

[Ciahnan Darrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5. Exquisite.

[Fredore Praltsa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I feel scandalous, but I didn't think this collection is all that. It held a few great poems, but these were islands; the other poems bob for breath in a sea of mystical images (a poem can only take so many "melod[ies] of mouth organs from afar, from indefinite years," before it goes under the waves). I'm also not sure how I feel about the morals Milosz proposes—and he is a poet praised for his moral insight. His general concern (or at least one of them) seems to be with the captivity of distinction. In his early poems, humans suffer from their individual existence. Some force had

... to lure the souls
From where they lived attentive to the idea of the hummingbird, the chair and the star.
To imprison them within either-or: male sex, female sex,
So that they wake up in the blood of childbirth, crying.

Here, material life categorizes the spirit and therefore cuts the spirit off from Truth (the hummingbird et al)—which is, implicitly, universal.

Then, WWII. He lived in Poland during the Nazi occupation. His poetry from this period leaves the metaphysical behind to enter reality: Jews face the Shoah, and he does not (or at least, not directly). The distinction that concerns him becomes less that between each individual and Truth and more that between each individual and the people around him. How can one person exist as their fellow humans experience ruin? And what if that ruin comes from a group to which the person belongs? And what conditions allow ruin to arise? His great poems explore these questions: "A Poor Christian Looks at the Ghetto," "Cafe," "Outskirts," "A Song on the End of the World" (which is famous), and "Child of Europe" (which should be famous). They read as both document and warning.

But after the war he takes another turn, and his moral anger and shame fade to melancholy:

We learned so much, this you know well:
how, gradually, what could not be taken away
is taken. People, countrysides.
And the heart does not die when one thinks it should,
we smile, there is tea and bread on the table.
And only remorse that we did not love
the poor ashes in Sachsenhausen
with absolute love, beyond human power.

There's a general search in his later poems for personal peace. But the risk of such peace is acquiescence. I realize he wrote with a wisdom I certainly lack (I am not a sixty-something year-old man who witnessed the Shoah and then witnessed Stalin). You see in his later poems, though, the sort of acceptance of human suffering in exchange for stability that dominated much of later-20th century thought (and remains with us today). He said, himself:

"Awareness of suffering makes a writer open to the idea of radical change, whichever of many recipes he chooses … Innumerable millions of human beings were killed in this century in the name of utopia—either progressive or reactionary, and always there were writers who provided convincing justifications for massacre.”

There's some truth in that, of course, but also fear-mongering, and a worldview that is dubious (awareness of suffering is also what spurs people to donate money to charities, volunteer, protest, etc.—are the legions of people serving food in America's soup kitchens and protesting on street corners really all gun-toting fascists?) and bleak in the extreme (shall we not be attentive to suffering at all, then?). We are in a time when it seems to me that our problem is our collective acquiescence to human misery. I don't feel like Milosz, bar some of his mid-career poems, speaks to that time.

[James Varney · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best poet of the second half of the 20th century. "Selected Poems" is full of wisdom and beauty, much of it rooted in despair. Milosz's poems are eerie in how they predict exactly what has happened in the West since WWII.

"Selected Poems" does not include the famous "Campo dei Fiori," with its image of the carousel in the Warsaw ghetto, but it does include several incredibly moving poems Milosz wrote at the end of World War II.

"Child of Europe" belongs on a list with "The Second Coming" and "The Waste Land" as the 20th century's greatest poems. It is packed with power, sentence after sentence. Some examples:

"Let your lips, proposing a hypothesis,
Not know about the hand faking the experiment.

Let your hand, faking the experiment,
Not know about the lips proposing a hypothesis.

Learn to predict a fire with unerring precision.
Then burn down the house to fulfill the prediction."

And then the astounding Part 4:

"Grow your tree of falsehood from a small grain of truth.
Do not follow those who lie in contempt of reality.

Let your lie be even more logical than the truth itself,
So the weary travelers may find repose in the lie.

After the Day of the Lie gather in select circles,
Shaking with laughter when our real deeds are mentioned.

Dispensing flattery called: perspicacious thinking.
Dispensing flattery called: a great talent.

We, the last who can still draw joy from cynicism.
We, whose cunning is not unlike despair.

A new, humorless generation is now arising,
It takes in deadly earnest all we received with laughter."

And even though "Child of Europe" repeatedly tells readers to "fill their lungs" it is a joy of living filtered through horrors.

"Love no country: countries soon disappear.
Love no city: cities are soon rubble.

Throw away keepsakes, or from your desk
A choking, poisonous fume will exude.

Do not love people: people soon perish.
Or they are wronged and call for your help.

Do not gaze into the pools of the past.
Their corroded surface will mirror
A face different from the one you expected."

Milosz's "Mid Twentieth-Century Portrait" is devastating, a snapshot of the very same intellectuals he eviscerated in "The Captive Mind." "The Captive Mind" is a wonderful book, but it is not as accessible as Milosz's poems.

"Selected Poems" also includes some later poems, such as "Gift." The poem appears undated here, but we know from "Collected Poems" Milosz wrote it in Berkeley in 1971. I think it offers a good snapshot of where Milosz stands on things:

Gift

"A day so happy
Fog lifted early, I worked in the garden.
Hummingbirds were stopping over honeysuckle flowers.
There was no thing on earth I wanted to possess.
I knew no one worth my envying him.
Whatever evil I had suffered, I forgot.
To think I once was the same man did not embarrass me.
In my body I felt no pain.
When straightening up, I saw the blue sea and sails."

There is a world in those few lines. Highly, highly recommended.

[Lisa-Michele · Rating 5 out of 5]

Milosz has a lyrical touch with a dark underpinning to his poems. “We were permitted to shriek in the tongue of dwarfs and demons But pure generous words were forbidden Under so stiff a penalty that whoever dared to pronounce one Considered himself a lost man.” Yep. That is a great description of Warsaw during World War Two and also America during 2020 electoral politics.
You can see why I turned to Milosz in the month of our contentious election drama. He lived through most everything in his turbulent life – World War One, when his father was conscripted from Lithuania into the Russian Army, World War Two, where he survived the Nazi occupation of Poland, exile in France, immigration to America where he worked as a professor at UC Berkeley, winning the Nobel Prize, and finally, peace at the end of his life living in Poland once again.

Here I am – why this unreasonable fear?

Soon night will go away, the day will rise,

Listen: already shepherds’ horns are

Playing. The stars fade over a red trace.

The Path is straight; we are on the edge.
I enjoy his interweaving of nature images and mental turmoil. I am in awe of his peace among the nightmares, internal and external. I read the poems over and over to find some hope.

It is your destiny so to move your wand,

To wake up storms, to run through the heart of storms,

To lay bare a monument like a nest in a thicket,

Though all you wanted was to pluck a few roses.

[Murinius · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m glad that I could take my time reading this little book, that I could set it down and for days think about what I had read. It is one of my favourites, not of this year but of all time—I had read a few before, and decided that it was past due. The superposition of different times and different places, of the living and the dead, war and peace, wakefulness and dream: one observes aspects of the totality in the particulars. In many poems, there is almost a disbelief at having survived the war when others died—in spite of this, they are still present. He remembers, and in doing so protects the memory for those who would come into this world at a later time. There are others that did what they could to forget, and one cannot fault them for it, considering what they suffered, but it is a brave and necessary thing to continue to speak of it when there are so many who would lie about what happened to promote ideologies of death.

My favourites were “King Popiel,” “Dedication,” “A Poor Christian Looks at the Ghetto,” “Cafe,” “Album of Dreams,” and “Three Talks on Civilization.”

[Correy Baldwin]

I never really fell for Milosz’s writing, though I was certainly drawn into an admiration – of his spirit or his wisdom, I suppose. His entire oeuvre is a lament. And his best writing (to my mind the poems from 1980 to 1986, and the early 1990s) wrestles relentlessly with mortality in a way that I found quite moving. And occasionally, there is a truly striking bit of writing, like the apocalyptic “The Thistle, The Nettle”:


The thistle, the nettle, the burdock, and belladonna
Have a future. Theirs are wastelands
And rusty railroad tracks, the sky, silence.

Who shall I be for men many generations later?
When, after the clamour of tongues, the award goes to silence?

I was to be redeemed by the gift of arranging words
But must be prepared for an earth without grammar,

For the thistle, the nettle, the burdock, the belladonna,
And a small wind above them, a sleepy cloud, silence.

[Ali Nazifpour · Rating 4 out of 5]

Czesław Miłosz's poetry is great. It's very subtle, with themes of religion, politics, and history being woven into a very understated imagery. If you sit with the poems and allow yourself to ponder them, they reveal their depth. At his best, his view of his subject-matter isn't simplistic or straightforward. His religious poems come with instances of doubt and introspection, his political and historical poetry ask difficult questions about witnessing and experiencing oppression. Cities and natural scenery come alive with extraordinary atmospheric power in his poems. At his best, he's a giant.

Personally speaking, I feel like the quality of his poems goes down after 2000s. They get way too religious and preachy. But since he won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1980, I would consider him a very deserving winner, since he wrote his best poems before this time.

[Celia Espadas Robles · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I was long in learning to speak, now I let days pass without a word"

I have recently discovered the power of Polish poetry, and I must say this selection is outstanding. Wislawa Szymborska's poetry has rekindled my passion for literature, and now, I have to say I have found myself in the intense, compelling and heart-pounding poetry of the Nobel Prize Winner, Czeslaw Milosz.

As Seamus Heaney said:
"His mind, to put it another way, was at once a garden - now a monastery garden, now a garden of earthly delights- and a citadel"

[Casey · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are some absolute bangers in here, and I thoroughly enjoyed this volume. Not ever sure what to say about the greats, my marginalia is all over this, and I had to look up references more than I have in anything I have read in a long while. My edition had it's pages roughly hewn and I dislike a collection spanning the life of a poet on a philosophical level. It is feels odd and wrong to hold an entire life in ones hands and go through it in a few days. For those reasons I've given it 4 rather than 5 stars.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars rounded up. This was a mixed bag for me. I really enjoyed the poet’s early work, as well as his poetry about WW 2 and his feeling about his national identity. I think “Incantation” may be one of my favorite poems period. However, I was really turned off anytime he wrote about women. It was sexual in a way I didn’t enjoy. I certainly respect the author’s work and his dedication to his craft but I don’t think I’ll seek out anything else.

[Systerbettty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jag läste inte denna utan ”Möten”, en svensk diktsamling av Miłosz som inte finns på Goodreads.

Stort tips! Miłosz genomlevde två världskrig, nationers kollaps, flykt och kaos. Han skriver ganska mycket om fosterlandets brutna ideal och mellan raderna får man själv uppleva vilken jäkla chock det måste ha varit att itutas nationernas storhet bara för att sedan se allt rämna.

Språket känns samtida och de dikter jag gillar mest handlar om vardagens enkla lycka.