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“The startling juxtaposition of sensual and brutal histories, of human and animal flesh, of the experience of war and of writing is Rózewicz’s great achievement throughout twenty volumes of poetry.”—Guardian
From the earliest days of his poetic career, Tadeusz Rózewicz found a unique, pared-down style that consciously avoided metaphor and sought a new, painfully clear voice in which to express the horrors of wartime experiences. His work was immediately recognized as new and vital in Polish poetry, and he came to be regarded as one of the most important writers of his generation. New Poems is a collection of Rózewicz’s three latest volumes in their entirety: exit (1998), the professor’s knife (2001), and gray zone (2002).
259 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2001
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46 people want to read
About the author
Tadeusz Różewicz
200 books93 followersTadeusz Różewicz - poet, playwright, and novelist, was one of Poland's most versatile and pre-eminent modern writers.
Remarkable for his simultaneous mastery of poetry, prose, and drama, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature. Tadeusz Różewicz has been translated into over forty languages. The most recent English-language volumes, recycling (2001), New Poems (2007) and Sobbing Superpower (2011), were finalists for the 2003 Popescu Prize (UK), the 2008 National Book Critics Award (USA) and the 2012 Griffin Prize (Canada) respectively. In 2007 he was awarded the European Prize for Literature.
Mother Departs (Matka odchodzi, 1999), exploring the life of his mother Stefania, is perhaps his most personal work. It won the Nike Prize in 2000, Poland’s most prestigious literary award. He lived in the city of Wrocław, Poland.
Różewicz studied art history at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, but he has been associated with Silesia since the late 1940s and lived in Wrocław for thirty years. His work has been translated into many languages including English (his work is championed in the UK by the poet and critic, Tom Paulin, and the Nobel Laureate, Seamus Heaney), French, German, Serbian, Serbo-Croatian, Swedish, Danish and Finnish and he has received Polish state prizes and foreign awards. He is well-known in many countries as an excellent poet of the highest moral authority. Różewicz is a precursor of the avant-garde in poetry and drama, an innovator firmly rooted in the unceasing re-creation of the Romantic tradition, though always with a teasing ironic distance. He is a grand solitary, convinced of an artistic mission that he regards as a state of internal concentration, alertness, and ethical sensitivity.
Remarkable for his simultaneous mastery of poetry, prose, and drama, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature. Tadeusz Różewicz has been translated into over forty languages. The most recent English-language volumes, recycling (2001), New Poems (2007) and Sobbing Superpower (2011), were finalists for the 2003 Popescu Prize (UK), the 2008 National Book Critics Award (USA) and the 2012 Griffin Prize (Canada) respectively. In 2007 he was awarded the European Prize for Literature.
Mother Departs (Matka odchodzi, 1999), exploring the life of his mother Stefania, is perhaps his most personal work. It won the Nike Prize in 2000, Poland’s most prestigious literary award. He lived in the city of Wrocław, Poland.
Różewicz studied art history at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, but he has been associated with Silesia since the late 1940s and lived in Wrocław for thirty years. His work has been translated into many languages including English (his work is championed in the UK by the poet and critic, Tom Paulin, and the Nobel Laureate, Seamus Heaney), French, German, Serbian, Serbo-Croatian, Swedish, Danish and Finnish and he has received Polish state prizes and foreign awards. He is well-known in many countries as an excellent poet of the highest moral authority. Różewicz is a precursor of the avant-garde in poetry and drama, an innovator firmly rooted in the unceasing re-creation of the Romantic tradition, though always with a teasing ironic distance. He is a grand solitary, convinced of an artistic mission that he regards as a state of internal concentration, alertness, and ethical sensitivity.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 19, 2008
Yet another in the series of polish poets I've been reading lately, obviously in translation. Mr. Rozewicz's poetry is very much a conversation with the reader rather than a literary separation, which makes for a different style than what a reader may be used to dealing with. Worrying very little about the poetic nature of what he has to say, he simply states it. Several of the early poems even act as poetic conversation, as he gives dialog between
himself and another person (frequently a fellow polish poet).
This style is obviously not for everyone. If you are very much into proper structure and form, this is not for you in any way shape or form, no pun intended. I admit that I even had a bit of trouble in the early going, trying to figure out if these seemingly random conversations and poetic ramblings had value for the reader. As I read more, I decided the answer was yes. Just because it doesn't fit the traditional thinking of a poem doesn't make it less of a poem.
This by no means means that Rozewicz cannot turn phrasings into gold. Sometimes he uses echoing sounds, other times it's just a good allusion, but the mastery of a poet is very much alive here, despite appearances to the contrary.
One of my favorites, too long to quote, was on the inauguration of President Bush in 01, as he shows all of the players in the worst possible light, the most vain sense, from W to Clinton and back again. That alone, given yet another long an ugly presidential season, is worth the price of admission.
In my opinion, the poetry quality really hits stride about halfway through. Here's a few snippets:
From alarm clock:
"how hard it is to be
the shepherd of the dead
at every step the living asl me
to write "something" "a few words"
about someone who has died
departed passed away
is resting in peace"
Rozewicz's style is very simple in general, perhaps a result of living in an oppressive country. There's no time to be sentimental when you might find yourself in prison any day now because you cut your neighbor off in traffic that afternoon.
From philosopher's stone:
"this poem
should be put to sleep
before it starts to philosophize
before it starts
to cast about
for compliments
summoned about
in a forgetful moment"
The only problem I had with this book is that translator Bill Johnston only translated the polish, and Rozewicz uses German frequently throughout the text. It's quite hard to lose good portions of poems because you don't understand them. Still, all in all, this was a good, if occasionally challenging read that modern poetry fans should enjoy. (Library, 05/08)
Trebby's Take: highly recommended for fans of modern, unsentimental poetry.
himself and another person (frequently a fellow polish poet).
This style is obviously not for everyone. If you are very much into proper structure and form, this is not for you in any way shape or form, no pun intended. I admit that I even had a bit of trouble in the early going, trying to figure out if these seemingly random conversations and poetic ramblings had value for the reader. As I read more, I decided the answer was yes. Just because it doesn't fit the traditional thinking of a poem doesn't make it less of a poem.
This by no means means that Rozewicz cannot turn phrasings into gold. Sometimes he uses echoing sounds, other times it's just a good allusion, but the mastery of a poet is very much alive here, despite appearances to the contrary.
One of my favorites, too long to quote, was on the inauguration of President Bush in 01, as he shows all of the players in the worst possible light, the most vain sense, from W to Clinton and back again. That alone, given yet another long an ugly presidential season, is worth the price of admission.
In my opinion, the poetry quality really hits stride about halfway through. Here's a few snippets:
From alarm clock:
"how hard it is to be
the shepherd of the dead
at every step the living asl me
to write "something" "a few words"
about someone who has died
departed passed away
is resting in peace"
Rozewicz's style is very simple in general, perhaps a result of living in an oppressive country. There's no time to be sentimental when you might find yourself in prison any day now because you cut your neighbor off in traffic that afternoon.
From philosopher's stone:
"this poem
should be put to sleep
before it starts to philosophize
before it starts
to cast about
for compliments
summoned about
in a forgetful moment"
The only problem I had with this book is that translator Bill Johnston only translated the polish, and Rozewicz uses German frequently throughout the text. It's quite hard to lose good portions of poems because you don't understand them. Still, all in all, this was a good, if occasionally challenging read that modern poetry fans should enjoy. (Library, 05/08)
Trebby's Take: highly recommended for fans of modern, unsentimental poetry.
March 22, 2022
Tadeusz Różewicz, New Poems
Wry, human, and grounded Polish poems, bridges from the past to the future.
Różewicz takes delight in the small things. He helps us to reconcile tragedy with life, and grief with joy. Even though these are as:
“rails that run
parallel
never meeting”
He takes the profound and banal in equal measure, detailing the concrete elements of existence, and finding life in their rhythm. Either the loss of human life in the tsunami or emptiness of consumer culture, with simple strokes of the pen, statements of names, he pours scorn on stupidity, and grieves pain and suffering. Or rather these are invoked through the sparse lines, single words that stand as lines, muted utterances as stanzas. And these are the bridges he builds “to link the past with the future”.
This future life saturated in consumer and legal culture is derided with awe at its pervasiveness. The lives of two UK factory-farmed piglets being given Prince Charles’s protection, before the owner suing for the loss of sausage. Tony the white rhino wonders about the fate of his species; “they use our horns to make / powder for their / impotent males”. The universal profundity of boiling an egg. Or the inescapable endless Rowling Rowling Coehlo Rowling of modern publishing in the “age of Harry Potter”. Life at the turn of the millennium was to be taken with a pinch of salt.
Bill Johnston’s translations are vibrant and read effortlessly. Różewicz’s imagery contextualises his voice within a post-socialist space, despite reaching back to socialism and war to question his future readers.
Ultimately, Różewicz celebrates the banal, and finds human connection there. He does this in mourning the loss of human connection, especially in the face of the fascism of monoliths, hatred, and fundamentalism, stone monuments that
“...crash like an avalanche
onto humanity
not onto “humanity”!
onto people.”
These are poems that make us reassess the cultural and political freedoms we so easily take for granted, especially in the face of the renewed and burgeoning threat of totalitarianism and hegemony.
Wry, human, and grounded Polish poems, bridges from the past to the future.
Różewicz takes delight in the small things. He helps us to reconcile tragedy with life, and grief with joy. Even though these are as:
“rails that run
parallel
never meeting”
He takes the profound and banal in equal measure, detailing the concrete elements of existence, and finding life in their rhythm. Either the loss of human life in the tsunami or emptiness of consumer culture, with simple strokes of the pen, statements of names, he pours scorn on stupidity, and grieves pain and suffering. Or rather these are invoked through the sparse lines, single words that stand as lines, muted utterances as stanzas. And these are the bridges he builds “to link the past with the future”.
This future life saturated in consumer and legal culture is derided with awe at its pervasiveness. The lives of two UK factory-farmed piglets being given Prince Charles’s protection, before the owner suing for the loss of sausage. Tony the white rhino wonders about the fate of his species; “they use our horns to make / powder for their / impotent males”. The universal profundity of boiling an egg. Or the inescapable endless Rowling Rowling Coehlo Rowling of modern publishing in the “age of Harry Potter”. Life at the turn of the millennium was to be taken with a pinch of salt.
Bill Johnston’s translations are vibrant and read effortlessly. Różewicz’s imagery contextualises his voice within a post-socialist space, despite reaching back to socialism and war to question his future readers.
Ultimately, Różewicz celebrates the banal, and finds human connection there. He does this in mourning the loss of human connection, especially in the face of the fascism of monoliths, hatred, and fundamentalism, stone monuments that
“...crash like an avalanche
onto humanity
not onto “humanity”!
onto people.”
These are poems that make us reassess the cultural and political freedoms we so easily take for granted, especially in the face of the renewed and burgeoning threat of totalitarianism and hegemony.
March 1, 2024
I love Poland and poetry, so some of this I loved a lot, but a lot of it was too obtuse/abstract for me to really get a lot out of.
June 26, 2009
Tadeusz Różewicz, New Poems (Archipelago, 2007)
I cut my poetic teeth on the surrealists and the dadas, and ever since I first discovered the genius of poets like Desnos and Daumal, I've been searching for modern inheritors of their craft. Of those poets known as surrealists these days (no one uses the term “dada” any more, however accurate it may be to describe a given poet's work), I have found very few that really assimilated not only the style, but the substance of surrealism—Chris Stroffolino, the early work of Clayton Eshleman, a handful of others. Oddly, all of them have been American, despite the fact that surrealism was born in Europe and then migrated to other parts of the world, but during its tenure never really caught on here; all the great American surrealists were American expatriates. Imagine my delight, then, when I started reading this newest volume of Różewicz' and came across this tidbit from the first poem in the book, “the professor's knife”:
“don't you have a watch or clock or something
a timepiece I mean we're entering
the 21st century there are supermarkets internets
there are egg timers
or whatever they're called
in modern households
in Germany”
That could be straight out of any surrealist tome, were any of the originals still alive and writing today. Awesome.
It's not all that wonderful; the one piece of the surrealist puzzle Różewicz never quite masters is the complete assimilation of the political, so that it seems an organic piece of the poetic puzzle. Too often the flow stops for a political insert, though not always; there are times when he completely gets it, and those times are some of the best poems in the book (including “the professor's knife”, a 20-plus page poem that seems to pull in every facet of Polish life at the end of the twentieth century). But if you cotton to the frenetic pace of the poems and that wonderful surrealist absence of punctuation that drives it, this is great stuff, and I highly recommend getting to know it. ****
I cut my poetic teeth on the surrealists and the dadas, and ever since I first discovered the genius of poets like Desnos and Daumal, I've been searching for modern inheritors of their craft. Of those poets known as surrealists these days (no one uses the term “dada” any more, however accurate it may be to describe a given poet's work), I have found very few that really assimilated not only the style, but the substance of surrealism—Chris Stroffolino, the early work of Clayton Eshleman, a handful of others. Oddly, all of them have been American, despite the fact that surrealism was born in Europe and then migrated to other parts of the world, but during its tenure never really caught on here; all the great American surrealists were American expatriates. Imagine my delight, then, when I started reading this newest volume of Różewicz' and came across this tidbit from the first poem in the book, “the professor's knife”:
“don't you have a watch or clock or something
a timepiece I mean we're entering
the 21st century there are supermarkets internets
there are egg timers
or whatever they're called
in modern households
in Germany”
That could be straight out of any surrealist tome, were any of the originals still alive and writing today. Awesome.
It's not all that wonderful; the one piece of the surrealist puzzle Różewicz never quite masters is the complete assimilation of the political, so that it seems an organic piece of the poetic puzzle. Too often the flow stops for a political insert, though not always; there are times when he completely gets it, and those times are some of the best poems in the book (including “the professor's knife”, a 20-plus page poem that seems to pull in every facet of Polish life at the end of the twentieth century). But if you cotton to the frenetic pace of the poems and that wonderful surrealist absence of punctuation that drives it, this is great stuff, and I highly recommend getting to know it. ****
March 29, 2008
some extremely beautiful poems and beautiful moments in this book. but overall it just felt a little uneven to me. i also don't think i was in the mood for "old man" nostalgia poems -- and rozewicz sounds old in many of these. i loved some of the imagery though, especially the trains in "the professor's knife." the two poems towards the end about being a rhinoceros were funny and lovely, although also a bit heavy-handed (but that could be the translation maybe). i found some of the holocaust poetry moving and some of it flat. "i rub my eyes" was interesting from a nationalism perspective, but not terrifically interesting as language. the several poems wherein he seems to be railing against j.k. rowling just plain confuse me -- what's that about anyway? many of these poems don't make much sense unless you read the notes; which is not something that i personally like very much.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews