A Book Of Luminous Things: An International Anthology of Poetry

by Czesław Miłosz (Editor)

"A collection of 300 poems from writers around the world, selected and edited by Nobel laureate Czeslaw Milosz Czesław Miłosz's A Book of Luminous Things—his personal selection of poems from the past and present—is a testament to the stunning varieties of human experience, offered up so that we may see the myriad ways that experience can be shared in words and images. Miłosz provides a preface to each of these poems, divided into thematic (and often beguiling) sections, such as “Travel,” “History,” and “The Secret of a Thing,” that make the reading as instructional as it is inspirational and remind us how powerfully poetry can touch our minds and hearts. "

Genres: Poetry, Anthologies, Fiction, Nobel Prize, Literature, School, Classics

352 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2009

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

[s.penkevich [hiatus-will return-miss you all] · Rating 4 out of 5]

'I have always felt that a poet participates in the management of the estate of poetry, of that in his own language and also that of world poetry.'
-Czesław Miłosz

For those, like me, that always wished they could have enrolled in one of Miłosz's courses at Berkeley, can find a bit of a consolation in A Book of Luminous Things. Edited, with a wonderful introduction asserting his intention to not defend poetry but 'remind readers that for some very good reasons [poetry] may be of importance today', and a slew of interpretations and insights into the poems found within, by Miłosz himself, this collection is a great way to experience world poetry through Miłosz's guiding eyes. He wishes to allow us to witness poetry with the same pure fascination and joy it reaches him, selecting the poems in order to show how 'the artist in his work hasto capture and to preserve one moment, which becomes, indeed, eternal'. Separating his collection into eleven sections, grouping them by ideas capturing a singular moment or emotion such as The Secret of a Thing, Travel, Nonattachment, or even Women's Skin (choosing to avoid 'Adding a few drops to the sea' of Love poetry and instead focusing on the sensation of pleasurable skin sensations, particularly those of women as detailed by women), Miłosz offers commentary and examples from a wide variety of poets across the globe to please our eyes. Viewing poetry through the eyes of my favorite poet is an uplifting and educational experience, introducing me to many new names and reaffirming the genius of poems I've long loved.

The single best aspect of this collection is Miłosz's commentary on the sections and poems. He occasionally analyzes the poem, but most often shares the emotions that boil inside him while caressing each carefully crafted line, and to share in these insights is truly rewarding. It is like attending a lecture by the great Nobel Laureate himself.

TED KOOSER
This poem, on a little town in Minnesota, is a synthetic image or even a collage. There is no single observer. First, we see the last car of a moving train, then we receive information about two lights in the darkness, one a bulb in the prison, the other a flashlight handled by an old woman And so altogether a province. The prison is an important building; and old house with cats belonging to a lone woman (the husband dead, children somewhere far away). Simultaneous images - moments are recaptured.

LATE LIGHTS IN MINNESOTA
At the end of a freight train rolling away,
a hand swinging a lantern.
The only lights left behind in the town
are a bulb burning cold in the jail,
and high in one house.
a five-battery flashlight pulling an old woman downstairs to the toilet
among the red eyes of her cats.

This collection is like riding shotgun with a friend and listening to their favorite album while hearing all their insights to each lyric, and discovering what each note means for them. I had a friend once where we would just drive around an analyze our favorites in such a way, a friend that would bestow such wonderful quandaries of life and attempt to deconstruct them to illuminate the joys in each detail. These drives not only taught me a lot about what I value in life, always looking to this friend as a teacher of sorts, but also let me truly appreciate the poetry of existence. This collection reminds me very much of those drives, except here I am passenger to the great Miłosz, and although he doesn't always give his opinions, he directs you towards beauty and asks you to decide for yourself what ideas and emotional fulfillment you can extract from each piece.

PO CHÜ-I
772-846
And here travel at night, before dawn, in a horse carriage, obviously only one stretch of a longer journey - it associates in my mind with similar travels in my childhood when automobiles in my remote corner of Europe were few. I love Po Chü-I for the extraordinary vividness of his images

STARTING EARLY
Washed by the rain, dust and grime are laid;
Skirting the river, the road's course is flat.
The moon has risen on the last remnants of night;
The travellers' speed profits by the early cold.
In the great silence I whisper a faint song;
In the black darkness are bred somber thoughts.
On the lotus-bank hovers a dewy breeze;
Through the rice furrows trickles a singing streams.
At the noise of our bells a sleeping dog stirs;
At the sight of our torches a roosting bird wakes.
Dawn glimmers through the shapes of misty trees...
For ten miles, till day at last breaks.

It is especially gratifying to read him praise so highly poets and poems that I have already loved, reaffirming my joy and giving me a bit of validation in my own opinion. It's like finding out your favorite musician loves the same songs you love. It's like a connection reaching beyond death, this glimmer of shared love, that human connection that makes reading and living so rewarding, powerful and beautiful, made only the more poignant by sharing it with a personal hero that really made me love this collection. Hearing him speak of Mary Oliver, a poet who might as well own my heartstrings, among others, really gave me joy.

MARY OLIVER
1935-
In view of the great number of nihilizing experiences in literature of the twentieth century, one should appreciate wisdom drawn by people from their contact with nature. Those experiences cannot be rationally defined. But perhaps most essential is the feeling of a universal rhythm of which we are a part simply thanks to the circulation of our blood. In this poe of Mary Oliver's, good and evil, guilt and despair, are proper to the human world, but beyond there is a larger world and its very existence calls us to transcend our human worries

WILD GEESE
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Occasionally, he tends to take a stab a poets, offering a reason why he dislikes a certain poem, yet still includes it within his collection for other reasons. I personally love Wisława Szymborska, yet Miłosz asserts that she is 'too scientific and that we are not so separated from things' in his description of, what I find truly lovely, View With A Grain of Sand. He includes it, however, for its brilliant depiction of the opposition of 'the human (i.e. language) to the inanimate world and shows that our understanding of it is illusory'. There are a few other cutting remarks by Miłosz throughout this collection, and often it leaves you wondering if he actually hated the poem.

This collection contains poets from across the globe, and has introduced me to many I had previously never heard of. While his own Polish poets are represented heavily, Wisława Szymborska, Anna Swir (all of hers are translated by him personally, and he offers great praise to her art), Adam Zagajewski, and Zbigniew Herbert among them, a great deal of space is given to the ancient Chinese poets. Miłosz loved these poets for their philosophical eye and for their ability to 'draw with a few dashes a certain situation' in such marvelous power. Take for example Tu Fu, a poet heavily referenced in this collection (and one I must certainly find a collection by soon):

WINTER DAWN
The men and beasts of the zodiac
Have marched over us once more.
Green wine bottles and red lobster shells,
Both emptied, litter the table.
"Should auld acquaintance be forgot?" Each
Sits listening to his own thoughts.
And the sound of cars starting outside.
The birds in the eaves are restless,
Because of the noise and light. Soon now
In the winter dawn I will face
My fortieth year. Borne headlong
Towards the long shadows of sunset
By headstrong, stubborn moments,
Life whirls past like drunken wildfire.
(translated from the Chinese by Kenneth Rexroth)

Many review here seem to complain of the high number of Chinese poets, which do seem to dominate the collection, yet they were Miłosz's favorites and analyzing their prose gives a great insight into his own. There are moments where one can clearly draw the connections of inspiration and see the great techniques Miłosz sharpened in his studies of these masters. It is also interesting to note that these same reviewers neglect to mention that the single greatest quantity of poems come from English written, particularly American, poets (I will concede that this is a male dominated collection, and I feel that an inclusion of more female poets would have been to its advantage). While Miłosz does touch upon the standards, offering some classic Walt Whitman or the William Carlos Williams we all loved, and loved to groan over, in our Lit 101 courses, he does contain many of my favorites. This collection, published in 1996, predates the Poet Laureate status of many of the American poets included, such as Billy Collins, Charles Simic, Ted Kooser, W.S. Merwin and even fellow Nobel Laureates like the incredible Tomas Tranströmer (if you enjoy poetry and have yet to read The Great Enigma: New Collected Poems, I urge you to find it and bask in it as soon as possible!) find honorable mention before most of America even realized who they were. Although many of these names were already relatively decorated at the time, I still credit Miłosz with having a great eye for poetry.

Composed of a vast assortment of wonderful poets, this collection is a great little dip through world poetry and a satisfying treat for anyone who loves Miłosz. While it isn't as focused as most poetry collections, this has the charm and nuance of being a book put out by a great poet which sets it above the basic 'Best English Poems' or '100 Poems To Blow Your Fucking Mind' nonsense that fill up bargain bins and shout to all half-hearted poet enthusiasts to purchase so they can have enough background to outwit the common streetwalker. This collection has heart, and personalized insight that really grasps the heart.
4/5

W.S. MERWIN
The following poet inspires us to reflect on what seldom crosses our minds. After all (literally after all), such an anniversary awaits every one of us.

FOR THE ANNIVERSARY OF MY DEATH
Every year without knowing it I have passed the day
When the last fires will wave to me
And the silence will set out
Tireless traveler
Like the beam of a lightless star
Then I will no longer
Find myself in life as in a strange garment
Surprised at the earth
And the love of one woman
And the shamelessness of men
As today writing after three days of rain
Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease
And boding not knowing to what

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

This anthology was a serious underachiever – I found little excitement in it. Of course there were some good poems, but many of them so well known that they provided little surprise (ever hear of Walt Whitman?).

Part of the problem is Milosz’s apparent love of the Chinese. I almost felt he would have been happier doing a whole anthology of Chinese poets. No disrespect to the Chinese, but I felt I was going to o.d. Chinese poetry is pretty much all contemplation, and unless you're looking exclusively for that, they bogged this down. There are also a lot of Polish poets, which again isn’t bad, but it made a strange mix.

Let’s do some math. Of 234 poems, 49 poems were by Chinese poets. 34 were by Polish poets.

40 were by women. Given history, I don’t expect true equality here, but this seems skewed. Oh wait, there was a section called “Women’s Skin,” in which Milosz made an effort to balance by bringing in “woman in her flesh, particularly as described by herself” in a way that gives “voice to her femininity.” This is a short section, as “today there is a plethora of poems written by women, but I do not find many corresponding to my very specific criteria.” I won’t pursue this statement, but basically all I can say is what an asshole.

Milosz includes four poems by the Frenchman Jean Follain, two of which he pretty much prefaces by saying he’s not so sure about the poetry of Jean Follain.

He’s got a couple poems by Linda Gregg, whom he considers one the best American poets, possibly because (?) “she used to come to my classes at Berkeley.”

One starts to wonder what the criteria were for being included in this anthology, which overall is a yawner. And I have yet to mention the worst thing about it – the short introduction to each poem, which was invariably banal and sometimes wasn’t much better than a paraphrasing.

So, if you want a decent anthology of Polish poetry go for Milosz’s Postwar Polish Poetry, which isn't bad. If you want Chinese, there are plenty of excellent anthologies of that country's poets, like One Hundred Poems from the Chinese edited by Kenneth Rexroth.

[K.D. Absolutely · Rating 2 out of 5]

Czeslaw Milosz (1911-2004) was a Polish poet, prose writer and translator of Lithuanian origin. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1980.

Tomorrow, the Filipinos group here in Goodreads will celebrate our 2nd year anniversary. Our main activity during the celebration will be a poetry reading. This will be our first time to have this kind of ambitious activity. As I try to read at least one work written by each of Nobel Prize awardees, I picked and read this book by Milosz. I thought I could use the previous books of poetry that I've read like that of by Seamus Heaney or that of Tomas Transtromer but their kind of poems will be very hard for me to read (I wasn't born with a gift of gab) much more to interpret and explain to my fellow members in the book club. They are too profound and a mere reader like me will stutter and run out of words trying to decipher their meaning. I am familiar with some of the poems of Pablo Neruda particularly those that were included in the movie Il Postino but I am expecting many members to get from those. So, I settled for this book.

A Book of Luminous Things: An International Anthology of Poetry, first publish in 1996, is not a anthology of Milosz own poems. Rather, he only chose, edited and provided introduction to the book and to each of the 100 or so poems. He explained that these were not all of his favorite poems because he only included those that are less popular from his own country (Poland) or countries not well-known for poems like China, Japan or other Eastern European countries.

The 100 or so poems are grouped into sections and each section has some explanations from Milosz on why they are group together and how poetry can give meaning to those poem's main theme. For example in the section called Situations, poems tell stories about or reflect the situations about a certain country, place or event in a certain period of time. As world revolves and progresses, more poems are written. And poems are from our memory, and not only our own memory, for we are like a thread in a huge fabric of generations. He further explained that this fabric today has extended more and more, for knowledge of history and of literature and art of other civilizations increases, and roads are open for traveling through centuries and millennia.

Anyway, I am picking the one from this book:

POETRY READING
by Anna Swir (1909-1984)

I'm curled into a ball
like a dog
that is cold.

Who will tell me
why I was born,
why this monstrosity
called life.

The telephone rings. I have to give
a poetry reading.

I enter.
A hundred people, a hundred pair of eyes.
They look, they wait.
I know for what.

I am supposed to tell them
why they were born,
why there is
this monstrosity called life.

I think this book is a good opening for the poetry reading. This is Milosz's intro to the poem:"Poetry readings are not common in some countries. In others, among them Poland, they draw an audience that doesn't treat poetry as an aesthetic experience only. Rather, in one way or another, such audiences bring to the event their multiple questions about life and death. This poem captures well the ignorance and helplessness of both the poet and her listeners."

By doing poetry reading, our group is trying to make the Philippines join those countries that appreciate not only the aesthetic beauty of poetry but also expanding our understanding of what life is.

I hope that this will be not the first and the last. I think there is something in poetry that everyone can enjoy only if we try to sit down and appreciate this genre.

[Ken · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this, along with a collection of Robert Hass essays, at the Oblong Book Store in Rhinebeck, NY, in the Hudson Valley. Visiting the Valley was more fun than visiting the City, at least for this more-rural sort, and those two books will always remind me of geography--where I was, when I was, why I was--thus gaining stature among books on my bookshelves (most with a more humble pedigree).

What makes this collection is the guiding hand of Czeslaw Milosz, who made it such a personal mix chiefly by adding a ton of old Chinese poetry with poets like Li Po, Wang Wei, Chang Yang-hao, Ch'in Kuan, Tu Fu, Po Chü-I, Sun Man Shu, et al. Milosz loves their word pictures and their complexity masquerading as simplicity. A vast majority of poems come with commentary by Milosz first, providing insight and a flashlight before one launches into the dark mysteries of the poem. Milosz also provides plenty of Walt Whitman's work and some of his personal favorites from eastern Europe (e.g. Anna Swir).

The thematic divisions of the book are as follows: Epiphany, Nature, The Secret of a Thing, Travel, Places, The Moment, People Among People, Woman's Skin, Situations, Nonattachment, and History. For aspiring poets, a roadmap of well-traveled byways and methods. For readers of poetry, a lovely and luminous trip through short poems, as most all of these collected works are contained on a single page.

[Gypsy · Rating 2 out of 5]

یکسری مشکلات داره این مجموعه که اگر ادعاهای گردآورنده نبود می‌تونستی نادیده بگیری.

اولاً نویسنده خیلی خودشو تحویل گرفته. ادعا داره یه مجموعه شعر موضوعی از شاعران همۀ دنیا (!) با تمرکز بیشتر بر لهستان و اروپای شرقی (که زادگاه خودشه) داره. اصن همین نگاه برای من عجیبه. تکلیفت رو مشخص کن؛ رومی رومی، زنگی زنگی. چطور می‌خوای همه رو کاور کنی؟ و نکته اینه که خب کاور نکردی. یه توازن بی‌ریختی بین اشعار هست؛ مثلاً از زنان خیلی شعر کم هست! خب عجیبه دیگه. یا شعر چینی خیلی زیاد داره! انصافاً نمونه‌های خوبی هم داره، اتفاقاً جزو شعرهایی بودن که دوست داشتم، اما بهتر نبود مجموعه مجموعه کار کنی؟ چوب زدنت که همه رو توی یه کتاب کنی؟ من احساس کردم نویسنده درک خوبی از شعر چینی داره. خب بیا یه مجموعه فقط چینی بده. نه که تو ادعا کنی از همۀ دنیا داری، اما مثلاً از جهان عرب این‌قدر کم گذاشته باشی. اشعار عربی خیلی زیبان، من متأسفانه فرصت زیادی نداشتم که نمونه‌های بسیاری بخونم، اما اون اندکی که خوندم به شدت مشتاقم کرده. بعد تو انگشت‌شمار شعر عربی گذاشتی؟ کلاً خاورمیانه رو نویسنده کنار گذاشته بود. تقریباً بهم برخورده بود که دیدم بالاخره یه دونه از مولانا هم گذاشته. و خب بیشتر هم بهم برخورد. =)) یه دونه؟ نمی‌ذاشتی بهتر بود. یا از اشعار آفریقایی همین‌طور، اینم شمارش کم بود. درحالی‌که اونا هم اشعار محلی جالبی دارن.

درکل بخوام بدبین باشم، نگاه نویسنده خیلی سوگیرانه بوده.

ثانیاً، شعرها بعضاً نمونه‌های خوبی نبودن! حتی بعضیاشون اینقدر بد بودن که من خنده‌م می‌گرفت! و حتی اواخرش فکر کنم، نویسنده انگار متوجه شده، توی مقدمۀ یکی از بخش‌ها می‌گه بعضی از این شعرها خوب نیستن، فاخر نیستن، اما توی بخش می‌گنجه بذارم. آخه واسه چی شعر خوب نمی‌ذاری؟ به نظرم این ضعف نویسنده بوده. چه اصراری داشتی همچین مجموعه‌ای دربیاری؟ بعضی شعرها بسیار خوب، و بعضی شکنجه‌آور!

ثالثاً، نویسنده خیلی بلاتکلیفه! این موردم شبیه اولیه، یعنی از یه طرف ادعای جهان‌شمول بودن داره، از یه طرف خیلی سلیقه‌ای انتخاب کرده. من دقیقاً از آدمی مثل تو انتظار دارم دست بذاری روی شاعران گمنام‌تر. بعد برمیداری از معروف‌ترین شاعرها شعر میاری؟ خب من مگه نمی‌تونم برم مجموعه خود یارو رو بخونم؟ چرا مال تو رو بخونم؟ از طرف دیگه، باز تلاش داره شاعرهای کمتر شناخته شده یا موضوعات کمتر کار شده رو هم توی مجموعه‌ش بیاره. مثل قسمت دربارۀ زنانش. (که انگار یکی بهش گیر داده چرا از زن‌ها هیچی نگفتی؟ اینم گفته عه راست می‌گی، بیا تهش یه قسمت می‌ذارم!) مثلاً یه شعر آفریقایی گذاشته بود که به یه زبان محلی بوده و پسر، خودِ این یه مجموعه جدا می‌خواد! تو کنار یه عالم اسم گنده و خفن، میای شعرهای کمتر دیده شده و ناشناخته می‌ذاری؟ این انصافه؟ نذاری که بهتره. یه نمونه گذاشتی که مخاطب فکر کنه آره یه نگاهی هم فراتر از سلیقۀ خودت داشتی؟

درآخر، من این موضوعی بودنش رو هم دوست داشتم. اما نویسنده سر اغلب شعرها یه مقدمه از شعر می‌نوشت که هم خوب بود، ولی بیشتر اسپویل‌کننده بود! :| شعر رو میومد توضیح می‌داد! می‌گفت شاعر اینجا اینو گفته، منظورش این بوده! یعنی می‌خواستی خودتو بزنی! :)) خب من چرا شعر رو بخونم وقتی تو توضیح می‌دی؟ دیگه شعر خوندن چه لطفی داره، تو همه جذابیتش رو از من گرفتی. کشف رو از من گرفتی. اگر باز آخر شعر می‌گفت، یه حرفی. یا توی مقدمۀ هر بخشش. به نظرم مقدمۀ هر بخشش کافی بود، مقدمه‌های خوبی بودن.

اما یه لحظه عقلت رو بذار جلوت؛ می‌خواستی چی کار کنی دقیقاً؟ به شاعران جهان بپردازی؟ به شاعران کمتر شناخته‌شدۀ اروپای شرقی بپردازی؟ به شاعرهای گمنام دنیا بپردازی؟ موضوعی کار کنی؟ سلیقه‌ای بچینی؟ همۀ اینا رو میشه باهم جمع کرد؟

بعدم هم اولش هم آخرش کلی تشکر می‌کنه و ادعا داره چه مجموعه کاملی درآورده. خیلی حیف کرده مجموعه رو. چی می‌شد یه مجموعه موضوعی کار کنی و با شاعران اروپای شرقی؟ بس بود دیگه. نه که می‌گی اینترنشنال، بعد یه دونه از ایران میاری، مولانا. اگه از هرجا یه نمونه میاوردی باز خوب بود، ولی به شدت سلیقه‌ای کار کرده. و خدا می‌دونه چه همه ملت هستن که منِ نوعی نمی‌شناسم ادبیات و شعرشون رو، و دقیقاً به آدم‌هایی مثل تو مراجعه می‌کنم که تو بهم بگی چطوریه، ولی تو هم نمی‌دونی. منتها ادعا داری که می‌دونی، کتاب می‌نویسی و مخاطب فکر می‌کنه همیناست.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nothing Twice
-Wislawa Szymborska

Nothing can ever happen twice.
In consequence, the sorry fact is
that we arrive here improvised
and leave without the chance to practice.

Even if there is no one dumber,
if you're the planet's biggest dunce,
you can't repeat the class in summer:
this course is only offered once.

No day copies yesterday,
no two nights will teach what bliss is
in precisely the same way,
with precisely the same kisses.

One day, perhaps some idle tongue
mentions your name by accident:
I feel as if a rose were flung
into the room, all hue and scent.

The next day, though you're here with me,
I can't help looking at the clock:
A rose? A rose? What could that be?
Is it a flower or a rock?

Why do we treat the fleeting day
with so much needless fear and sorrow?
It's in its nature not to stay:
Today is always gone tomorrow.

With smiles and kisses, we prefer
to seek accord beneath our star,
although we're different (we concur)
just as two drops of water are.
*
Witness
-Denise Levertov

Sometimes the mountain
is hidden from me in veils
of cloud, sometimes
I am hidden from the mountain
in veils of inattention, apathy, fatigue,
when I forget or refuse to go
down to the shore or a few yards
up the road, on a clear day,
to reconfirm
that witnessing presence.

[Cami · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been reading this book for 10+ years now. The great thing about poetry anthologies is that you don't have to read it all at once and you can easily pick them up, get something wonderful out of them in under a minute and be better for it.
Anyway, this is a marvelous collection of just what the title implies. It is divided under the following groupings: Epiphany, Nature, The Secret of a Thing, Travel, Places, The Moment, People Among People, Woman's Skin, Situations, Nonattachment and History.

Non-permisive exerpt:
The Lute
by Judah Al-Harizi
trans. from Hebrew

Look: the lute sounds in the girl's arms,
delighting the heart with its beautiful voice.

Like a baby crying in his mother's arms,
while she sings and laughs as he cries.

Edited by Nobel Laureate Czeslaw Milosz, he offers wonderful commentary on nearly every poem or at least poet and often give a deeper meaning to the poem that follows.

I own and love this book.

[Guy · Rating 3 out of 5]

My clearest feeling response to this was disappointment. And I have been struggling with why. The poetry chosen by Miłosz was generally very good to excellent, but often enough flat. I somehow felt myself plodding through the collection, rather then dancing or racing. And, even worse, found myself comparing the collection to Robert Bly's enthralling and stimulating collection News of the Universe: Poems of Twofold Consciousness. I am very well aware that it does a disservice to both to compare, but something in Luminous Things kept my mind on it. Perhaps it is my feeling that Miłosz was trying to teach something rather than inspire something.

I do know that a part of my reaction is because I found Miłosz's introductory comments heavy, a bit dull and a bit pedantic in a teacherly tone that put me off. Perhaps this feeling is me getting old. But let me give you an example.

PO CHÜ-I
772-846
Po Chü-I read and respected philosophers. Some people called him a Taoist. Nevertheless, he allowed himself malice in addressing a legendary sage, the creator of Taoism. Let us concede that it's a difficult problem, discovered by similar poets who announce the end of poetry, and yet continue writing.

The Philosophers: Lao-Tzu
"Those who speak know nothing:
Those who know are silent."
Those words, I am told,
Were spoken by Lao-tzu,
If we are to believe that Lao-tzu,
          Was himself one who knew,
How comes it that he wrote a book
          Of five thousand words?
          Translated from the Chinese by Arthur Waley

In this case, not only is the introduction dull, but so is the poem chosen. My reaction to this particular example may be coloured by my having read Taoist stuff for more than 30 years, including the 'problem' of Lao-Tzu's apparent hypocrisy.

I did see some excellent poems, and many new ones to me from writers I like. But, as in the one I am citing below, I found that Miłosz's introduction did not inspire m.

MUSO SOSEKI
1275-1251
Nonattachment and liberation are, in poetry, often associated with old age because the years bring — in any case, they should bring — some wisdom, as in this poem by a Japanese poet.

Old Man At Leisure
Sacred or secular
     manners and conventions
          make no difference to him

Completely free
     leaving it all to heaven
          he seems a simpleton

No one catches
     a glimpse inside
          his mind

this old man
     all by himself
          between heaven and earth
     Translated from the Japanese by W.S. Merton

[Johnny · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know how I would begin to review a poetry anthology, especially as my interactions with them are typically one hitter quitters, dropping in for one poem, tumbling it for a bit, and dropping back into the world. They almost become reference, right?

This works well not as a reference but as something to read through, pages at a time. My attention span doesn't allow for me to stay in one steady line for too long, and the swamps of poems (these are good swamps) swamp me in in a real way.

But this is great, and Milosz' comments are wonderful. Contrasting it with Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart: while I maybe 'enjoy' the RBSH poems more, this one holds true to the title: it's luminous without being light, grey sun beaming straight through the calming clouds.

Best poem is the ancient Chinese one about the dude sobering up. I'll come back and post it later, maybe.

[Ci · Rating 5 out of 5]

This anthology by Czeslaw Milosz has taught me much about reading poetry. It has also provided me a list of poets’ works for future reading. I highly recommend this book for anyone who is intrigued by the ability of good poems reaching the rarefied realm of consciousness: truth, beauty, sufferings and nobility. These poems are highly distilled; they are also short, vivid and accessible.

There is no T.S. Eliot, because the Milosz made “accessibility” the primary criterion for this anthology. Except a few exceptions, these poems are grounded in tangible sensory reality commonly recognizable by most readers. Milosz likened these poems as “figurative paintings” instead of abstract ones. In addition, these poems are relatively short, rarely running into the second page. Yet the ideas and emotions in most poems are complex. These are not endless rhapsodic chants of moonlights and the beauty of the beloved! Love poems are included, but thankfully limited in numbers.

What is a good poem? As Milosz said, if philosophy can be considered as a generalizing principles, then poetry is about the particulars: the irreducibly subjective experience of human lives. Edward Hirsch used “message in a bottle” as a metaphor for poetry, while I venture to borrow Emily Dickinson’s “salientness” as in “Tell all the truth but tell it slant” to imagine a slant beam of concentrated light shining on an object. These dramatic elements — a single light, surrounding darkness, and the heightened object —bring home the truth. There are several poems fit into this image of a poetic quality that is absolute and epiphanic. A few examples here: Wislawa Szymborska’s “Four in the morning”, Zbigniew Herbert’s “Elegy of Fortinbras”, and Linda Gregg’s “Night Music”.

The author has segmented this collection into different themes, yet I think these themes are general grouping mechanism only. Read them all even if you are not interested in "Nature" or "Travel" in the chapter titles. I am enthralled by most of the poetry in the sections “Epiphany”, “Nature”, “The Moment”, “Nonattachment”, and “History”. I am sure my second reading would enlarge and deepen my appreciation of poems that I have found puzzling in the first read.

On my list of to-read poets are: Robinson Jeffers, Denis Levertov, To Fu (translated Kenneth Rexroth), Anna Swir, Tadeusz Rosewikz, and Rumi.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was good, but I didn't love it. I was surprised not to love it, considering I like so many of the poets represented here. But I didn't love it. The choice of poems was - I don't know, deliberately non-magical, maybe? I'm all for everyday life - I'm a big fan of taking the ordinary and making it strange. But many of these poems were all ordinary, no strange. That said, it does have some wonders.

[Tara · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really wonderful anthology of international poets. Some of them are pretty old, like 1,000 years or so - but there are also lots of contemporary poets, and often the two are showcased side by side. Milosz also gives a little preface or description before a new poet or poem. Since the poems vary widely in geography, culture, and history, these little snippets really helped me to appreciate each poem and learn something new or fun.

[Edita · Rating 3 out of 5]

There’s a traveler mad with grief,
no doubt seeing odd things;
he talks to himself, and when he looks
wipes us out with his look.
— Antonio Machado

Poor moth, I can’t help you,
I can only turn out the light.
— Ryszard Krynicki

Autumn, cloud blades on the horizon.
The west wind blows from ten thousand miles.
[…]
A single wild goose climbs into the void.
— Tu Fu

[Edgar Trevizo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'd give it eight stars if I could. This is the most beautiful poetry anthology I've ever read. You seriously want it near you, every day for the rest of your days.

[chickienuggies™ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I will give it a 4. Some very lovely poems inside which I will add later

[Bethany · Rating 5 out of 5]

In any anthology of poetry, some poetry is a hit and some is a miss. This book had a wide variety of hits. I adore poetry, in all it's forms, and even the old English poems that involved dense language and intricate rhyming schemes were still interesting and easy enough to understand. I love that Milosz specifically wanted to choose poems that were easy to read and easy to understand.

This book was light and refreshing and represents everything I adore about poetry.

[Kathryn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh this book! Best anthology of poetry I have ever picked up. I will be eternally in debt to my professor. This book didn't cover Shakespeare, Milton or Frost but translations from the Chinese, Polish and authors you have never heard of before! In a wonderfully surprising way that made me read for days like a novel. Excellent. If you don't own a copy, do.

[Claxton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I know -- big deal, another poetry anthology. Still, I love this one because I dig the editor's tastes, and I love that he chose poetry that is life affirming. He says, "I rejoice in being able to make an anthology as this one, and it may be a source of optimism that in this cruel century such an anthology could be made." Amen.

[Helen Luo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m late to the party. Czeslaw Milosz’s “A Book of Luminous Things” is an exquisite, lambent display seemingly compiled and commentated by a master of the craft who’s lived ten-thousand lifetimes of poetic happenings, and sees the world with a parallel number of learned eyes. I should have read it years ago and I cannot recommend it enough for the novice and professional writer, and for the polyglot, the scholar, the aesthete, the epicurean, the Daoist, the anthropologist, and the philosopher. No wonder Milosz has a Nobel in literature - this text profoundly proves that the skilled poet (even when taking the role of curator) has an ineffable something that all artists lack.

And Milosz goes to tremendous depths to carve out that nameless ‘something’ as universal and multiculturally informed such that all the poetic voices compiled seem to move in a coherent wave. For an art form so dedicated to language and linguistic dexterity, Luminous Things steps away from the granularity of poetics and transcends the words themselves (call this an anti-Nabokovian approach, if you will. It is apparent that Milosz is much more of a Zhuangzian.). As such, many of the pieces read in a haiku approach, where it is the conceptual beauty of the content that does the heavy aesthetic labour, and while immersed in the lines, the reader feels that basic, gut-string twinge that only simplicity can capture. Universal concepts like “rain” or “gold” or “suffer” seem to pack so much into so little within these pieces. For much of my literate life I trapezed between disdain and confusion with respect to the work of William Carlos Williams, but here Milosz has finally convinced me of its merit, and other things of its type. Of course so much depends on the red wheelbarrow glazed with rainwater, beside white chickens, and fixing words on a page in that fashion, like a Chinese brushmaster capturing the true universe in one practiced movement, is sublime.

I love a lot about this book, and much of it is grounded in Milosz’s expertise. I love that he speaks fondly about everything, from unknown female poets from Old China, to a Polish city demolished by war, to a student whose work he admired. This is what passion ought to be, unabashed. I love that his philosophical knowledge is sound and complete, and his dedication to research rigorous. I love that he captures that single, monist beautiful thing that poetry alone can accomplish, and shows all of its facets. And I love that going through Luminous Things guided by his voice feels like conversing with an old friend, whose friendship is lighthearted and patient and grateful.

[Amelia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyable. Not many flashy or experimental poems here, but then I don't know who goes into a Czeslaw Milosz book looking for flash lol. Mostly composed of poems I wasn't familiar with from poets I knew, but I was surprised here and there by a well-known poem or an unknown poet. This anthology demands a lot of sustained attention from you despite the brevity of the poems, since what I think Milosz's reasons are for selecting a given poem are sometimes quite subtle. Though I found his commentary to be often helpful :)

Divided into sections: Epiphany, Nature, The Secret of a Thing, Travel, Places, The Moment, People Among People, Woman's Skin, Situations, Nonattachment, and History.

Woman's Skin annoyed me a little bit, despite some very good poems within it—I don't think Milosz was sexist per se, certainly not a misogynist, but when you read enough of his stuff you come to understand he's got some specific stance on women that is difficult to place. Whatever he's got going on is surely preferable to the thoughts of a lot of other men of his time—let alone male poets—so I tend to let it slide. Maybe I'll do a better job of describing it some other time.

Anyways, I really enjoyed the Travel section—there was a run of poems just about being on trains that really landed for me. Other highlights for me were The Secret of a Thing, The Moment, and History.

Adam Zagajewski
AUTO MIRROR
In the rear-view mirror suddenly
I saw the bulk of the Beauvais Cathedral;
great things dwell in small ones
for a moment.


Seamus Heaney
FROM "CLEARANCES,", IN MEMORIAM M.K.H. (1911-1984)
When all the others were away at Mass
I was all hers as we peeled potatoes.
They broke the silence, let fall one by one
Like solder weeping off the soldering iron:
Cold comforts set between us, things to share
Gleaming in a bucket of clean water.
And again let fall. Little pleasant splashes
From each other's work would bring us to our senses.

So while the parish priest at her bedside
Went hammer and tongs at the prayers for the dying
And some were responding and some crying
I remember her head bent towards my head,
Her breath in mine, our fluent dipping knives—
Never closer the whole rest of our lives.


Charlies Simic
EMPIRE OF DREAMS
On the first page of my dreambook
It's always evening
In an occupied country.
Hour before the curfew.
A small provincial city.
The houses all dark.
The store-fronts gutted.

I am on a street corner
Where I shouldn't be.
Alone and coatless
I have gone out to look
For a black dog who answers to my whistle.
I have a kind of halloween mask
Which I am afraid to put on.

[Amy Grondin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the selection of poems, although I was expecting and I think would have preferred a broader range of styles: Miłosz notes that he selected poems that are "short, clear, readable, and [...] realist, that is, loyal toward reality and attempting to describe it as concisely as possible." Which is fine; there are oodles of good poems that check those boxes, and I found many I'd never read before that I really liked. I have to say I wasn't really feeling Miłosz's comments before each poem, however. Sometimes they added a special insight to my reading, but more often they just annoyed me, possibly because I'm just used to reading and interpreting poems in a collection on my own terms, after perhaps reading an interpretive preface or forward.

[naisokram]

I don't think one can rate poetry collections, especially this one that's comprised of so many different poems from different geographical and historical spaces. All you can do is to contemplate the anthology, find poems, expressions, and sentences that will pierce your heart. That's it.

Milosz has acted as a poetry collector, introducing a wide variety of poems and classifying them into topics and themes such as Nature, Places, Travel, Epiphany, Woman's Skin (my favorite part of the collection), Situations, etc. And the poems are preceded by short descriptions or thoughts of Milosz.

I have discovered names that I will definitely explore more.

[Solomon Bloch · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t understand poetry.

Czelaw writes beautifully about each different topic which the poems in this volume address, and I learned some from that, but ultimately the poems often left me flat. Of course, that is my fault. A few great ones though, excellent ones. If only I had some taste. I should probably read more Anna Swir, who I thought performed strongly in this collection.

Here’s a random one by Chinese poet Li Po (701-762)

THE BIRDS HAVE VANISHED
The birds have vanished into the sky, and now the last cloud drains away.
We sit together, the mountain and me, until only the mountain remains.

[Kayla · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book, a birthday present from a dear friend, will keep on giving. I have already read a few poems several times. Czeslaw Milosz curates poems from all over the world and from all different ages. I love good anthologies because they lead to the discovery of poets you may have heard of but have not picked up yet: in this case, Kenneth Rexroth, Anna Swir, and Tu Fu. Old favorites Mary Oliver, Elizabeth Bishop, and Tomas Transtromer are part of the poetry party, as well.

Utterance

Sitting over words
Very late I have heard a kind of whispered sighing
Not far
Like a night wind in pines or like the sea in the dark
The echo of everything that has ever
Been spoken
Still spinning it’s one syllable
Between the earth and silence


W.S. Merwin

What a treat.

[Cecily Brizz · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were some gems in here, but the intros to every poem were pretty annoying. I ignored most of them but every now and again I would read one only to be reminded of why I hadn’t been reading them.

There’s a lot of old, old, old poetry in here that I didn’t find relatable, but that’s more of a personal problem, I guess.

There were maybe 15 poems that I marked for future reference, but definitely didn’t find myself wanting to pick this up after a while.

[Cathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pretty decent collection of poetry, even if overwhelmingly written by male poets. I found Milosz’s introductions for every poem annoying, especially for the female poets, to paraphrase “oh here’s a cutesy poem about an older woman who is lamenting her fading beauty” *pats poet on head*
But if I skipped those, most poems were pretty great.

[Ryan Stark · Rating 4 out of 5]

picked this up to try and improve my eye (ear?) for poetry. i’m not entirely sure if it was successful—i have a better handle on what i like to look for in poetry outside of a teacher telling me to notice this and that or the other thing i suppose—but there were certainly a lot of poems i collected from it! loved the anna swir inclusions; also, raymond carver wrote really good poetry, apparently!

[Maria Reagan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a little bit all over the place, but of course filled with lots of lovely poetry. I appreciated the thematic organization, especially the sections that were shorter. It was interesting to contemplate each theme as expressed by varied poets. The longer sections were harder to take in.

[Cherie Palmer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful and varied assortment of poetry. A must for anyone who loves poetry!

[Renato Tinajero · Rating 5 out of 5]

De verdad un libro que ilumina. Para entender un poco más la poesía, que es lo mismo que entender un poquito más la vida. Y la traducción: cuidada en todo detalle, bellísima.