Provinces

by Czesław Miłosz, Robert Hass

Poems explore the themes of youth and mortality, the redemptive power of language, and the borders that divide the past and the present

Genres: Poetry, Poland

80 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 1991

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]

Listen, perhaps you will hear me, young man.
Noon. Crickets sing as they did for us
A hundred years ago. A white cloud passes,
Its shadow runs beneath it, the river glitters.
Your nakedness. The echo
Of a tongue unknown to you, here, in the air,
Our words addressed to you, gentle and guiltless
Son of invaders. You do not know
What happened here. You do not seek
Faith and hope as they were practiced here,
You walk by smashed stones with the fragments of a name.
Yet this water in the sun, the scent of calamus,
The same ecstasy of discovering things
Unite us. You will find again
The sacredness they tried to expel forever.
Something returns, invisible, frail and shy,
Adoring, without name, and yet fearless.
After our despair, your hottest blood,
Your young and avid eyes succeed us.
Our heir. Now we are allowed to go.
Again, listen. Echo. Faint. Fainter.

[Francisco Barrios · Rating 4 out of 5]

Let's put it on the simplest terms: Czeslaw Milosz probably was the greatest lyrical poet of the 20th century. His reflections upon morally essential subjects transcend the atrocious display of horror this period had. What is it like to have been alive? Why did I survive and someone else did not? Have I done more good than evil (even if I decided not to act at certain instances)?

In this book the poet focuses on the meditative lyric (sometimes dismayingly) and not seldomly joins the ranks of the ascetics, pulling out memories of times past, making peace with his grudges and addressing God for a number of reasons. This last aspect (in my opinion) breaks the general tone of the poems, craftily consolidated in the first pages —and, to be honest, was completely unexpected! Was this a matter of (lack of) edition or the poet's willingness simply prevailed? Hard to tell at this point.

The work has some truly memorable poems, though. Kazia, And yet, Reading the notebook of Anna Kamienska, Inheritor, and Spider (to name my top choice) deserve to be read widely and belong in the most strict anthologies. Without a doubt, anyone lying their hands on this book (poetry lovers or not) will greatly benefit by reading it.

[Jacob Binder · Rating 4 out of 5]

I sometimes find Milosz's poetry to be a bit hit or miss, perhaps because his poetry can be (to the extent that poetry can be) a bit conservative and theological. He mourns a world that I do not mourn, not exactly. But the exercise of entering, through his verse, that mourning is like dipping a limb into a cold stream: disturbing and invigorating.

[Edgar Trevizo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Magnificent. Absolutely magnificent. It is so wise, so deep and yet so humble that it is hard to believe it was written by a man, like any of us, sitting at a desk, on a bench at the park, at a café. It’s simply brilliant. And to be read preferably at a mature stage of life.

[Corin · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

[Austin]

funnier than i was expecting and pretty much as good as i’d hoped. i have a feeling it’s an odd place to begin reading milosz, as i’m doing, though.

[Descending Angel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A poetry collection from 1991. Highlights ~ "Evening" "Creating the World" "At Yale" "Abode" "A New Province" "Either-Or" "Spider" "Far Away" "Inheritor" "Gathering Apricots" "Meaning" and "Kazia".

[Jason Mashak · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a long-time fan of Milosz, I was disappointed by the ping-pongish didacticism and flippancy that run through many of the poems in Provinces. Sure, his genius moments are there, but they seemed fewer and more buried here than in other works of his. I'd rather hear a Polish librarian whisper Cheswahv Mywosh in my ear all night than to read this entire book again (I'm not sure if that's completely unexpected, but a less-than-stellar book isn't unexpected, either -- even from a Giant).

[mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

"How stupid is the business of the State/I should not write about it and yet I do./For, after all, one pities people...

from "Far Away"

[Mills College Library]

891.8517 M661p 1991

[PEN Center USA · Rating 5 out of 5]

1992 PEN Center USA Award Winner for Poetry