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A Book of Luminous Things: An International Anthology of Poetry

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To call this excellent collection of poems an "international" anthology is a bit presumptuous. The bulk of the poems were written by poets whose native language is American (88), Chinese (53), Polish (35) or French (16). The selection, however, aptly reflects the geographical stations in the life of the Nobel Prize winner of 1980, Czeslaw Milosz. Born in 1911, he lived in Poland until 1951 when he emigrated to France. In 1960, invited by the University of California, he moved to Berkeley where he lived and worked until his death in August 2004. During the Second World War he lived in Warsaw, writing for the underground presses - which probably explains why only one German poem (by Rilke) appears in this book. To put this in perspective: poetry in German ranks on the same level as Inuit poetry here, one poem each.

But never mind. After swallowing my national cultural pride, I admit that "A Book of Luminous Things" is my favorite anthology of poetry. By a wide margin. Milosz did not simply compile a "best of" collection; he created a very personal, intimate book. The poems collected in this anthology are as much about the joy of living as they are about the awareness that old age may bring. What they teach are attention to the particular and appreciation of the transitory. Milosz's proposition for the collection was to present poems, "whether contemporary or a thousand years old, that are, with few exceptions, short, clear, readable and, to use a compromised term, realist, that is, loyal toward reality and attempting to describe it as concisely as possible. Thus they undermine the widely held opinion that poetry is a misty domain eluding understanding."

Milosz titled the last chapter of his anthology "History." At first, I found it a strange choice to conclude such a personal book with a chapter of poems that for the most part deal with the inhuman crimes perpetrated in the 20th century. A strange choice in particular because the preceding chapter titled "Non-attachment" would have given the book a final note of calm and serenity. Eventually, however, I considered the last chapter quite appropriate for a poet like Milosz who was committed to realism and political activism. As much as Milosz may have admired the attitude of non-attachment - illustrated with ultimate skill by the Chinese poets in this anthology - the formative experience of his life were the unspeakable deeds of cruelty committed by Germans in his home country.

A Book of Luminous Things begins with a very short chapter titled "Epiphany." Epiphany, Milosz explains, is an unveiling of reality. What in Greek was called 'epiphaneia' meant the appearance, the arrival, of a divinity among mortals or its recognition under a familiar shape of man or woman. Epiphany thus interrupts the everyday flow of time and enters as one privileged moment when we intuitively grasp a deeper, more essential reality hidden in things or persons. This definition of epiphany informs Milosz's understanding of realism. It is in fact an understanding that goes back to Heraclitus in European intellectual history and to Chuang Tzu in Chinese intellectual history - although admittedly the poems in this anthology are more easily accessible than most of the fragments of Heraclitus and Chuang Tzu.

It is difficult to praise this book highly enough. Indirectly, surreptitiously it is a wonderful portrait of the old Czeslaw Milosz who was in his mid-eighties when he compiled it. It is also an intimate guided tour through poetry, with introductions to every chapter and short, illuminating comments on almost every poem. It is full of unexpected discoveries, especially when it comes to some contemporary female poets like Wislawa Szymborska (1923- ; Nobel Prize for Literature 1996), Denise Levertov (1923-1997), and Anna Swir (1909-1984). And finally, A Book of Luminous Things is one of the most impressive and inspiring documents of the plentiful harvest that can come with experience and age:

THE GREATEST LOVE (by Anna Swir)

She is sixty. She lives
the greatest love of her life.

She walks arm-in-arm with her dear one,
her hair streams in the wind.
Her dear one says:
"You have hair like pearls."

Her children say:
"Old fool."

A brilliant collection of poems by scores of poets from various countries and various eras. A book that will be well-thumbed by the peripatetic reader who moves from form to form, and from image to image. Milosz's commentary is also poetic. Sometimes he simply provides facts about a poem or a poet, but usually he frames the poem, as if hanging a border to concentrate the qualities of each poem in the reader's eye

I have ordered this book for my college English classes for the past four years. Each time I browse through it I find something new, something valuable. I do indeed keep a copy in my car's glovebox. I pull it out if I find myself stuck somewhere and I read a poem or two.
The selections are indeed eclectic and span the globe. They are loosely arranged by theme and my international students assure me that the translations are good and truly reflect the spirit of the originals.
I recommend this highly to people who love poetry and to those who think they might someday at least like it.

I've never seen an anthology that is such an act of beauty in itself.

The selection of poems and commentary support a beautiful range of poems that are fresh & vital, brief & accessible. I can imagine this used to turn people on to poetry, as these poems always hit a nerve and are never obscure or bland. It is not comprehensive in a sense of poetic history, but it serves well as a collection for inspiration & meditation which will neither daunt the person new to poetry or insult the intellect of the scholar.

The poetry in this diverse volume lives up to the lofty title on the book cover. Indeed, the poetry therein is luminous. From Haiku and dead moths to drangonfly wings and Jeffers' hurt hawks, this anthology is great for any ocassion. I discovered it while traveling, and it proved a lovely travel companion. It made the trip especially memorable and much more endurable, in that the poetry unceasingly provided me opportunity to reflect on the human condition and elemental themes. The more interesting aspect of this anthology happens to accord with the editor's own writing philosophy--which focuses on celebrating the ordinary--to demonstrate that the world is imbued with poetic spirit in simple facts--simple happenings that may easily be overlooked by the distracted passerby. I recommend this volume to anyone, esp. the contributions of Herbert, Hass, Milosz, Jeffers, and Szymborska.

I can't say emphatically enough that this book has only the very best poetry, no junk, no rants, no cusswords, no harangues, just wise minds speaking through their poetic voices.

If a poem has ever changed your life...

If you write poetry...

If you read poetry...

If you want to write poetry...

If you are curious about how people think about things...

If you want to understand people better...

read this International Anthology of Poetry skillfully edited by Czeslaw Milosz.

While you may not feel connected to every poet, you are sure to discover poets and poetic thoughts that make you feel understood, perhaps for the first time.

Enjoy! Enjoy! Enjoy!

This is a nice eclectic collection of poems from around the world. The poems have been organized into rather unique categories. The book is different from many poetry anthologies in that the poems are diverse and inspiring, and they are arranged in a pleasing nonstandard manner.

This anthology contains a wonderful range of poems, old and new, from many countries. Milosz is a sensitive reviewer and compiler. He introduces each poem with a comment that elucidates the poem's meaning and enhances the reader's appreciation. An excellent selection, very well presented. The book's layout gives each poem the importance it deserves. I will immediately look up the compiler's own poems. He is intelligent, thoughtful and sensitive.

Milosz has assembled a refreshingly broad spectrum of Chinese, European, and American poetry into a solid collection. What I like about the works is that the language is terse, short, and powerful, though not always a hit with me. The Chinese works are like this, succinct, subtle, and surprisingly accessible.

Poetry collections can be quite valuable things - picking one up rather than a body of work by a single author frees one of the apprehension that comes with committing to that author's work and the possibility that said author's work might not be worth owning in such a concentrated format. Conversely, a collection of multiple authors can open a reader up to poets they may have never come across otherwise. Indeed, that was one of Milosz's aims in putting together this compendium - to largely deflect the focus from the accepted and reliable canon (though Robert Frost and D.H. Lawrence do find their way in somehow) as well as provide work from an international selection of authors (though the concentration is frustratingly biased toward English, Polish and Chinese language works - not a bad thing in of itself, but it does play against the international appeal to some degree). The other criteria is that the poems be "short, clear, readable and, to use a compromised term, realist, that is, loyal toward reality and attempting to describe it as concisely as possible" (p. xv). The work rarely sways from this description, though like any good author Milosz isn't afraid to break his own rules. What you arrive at in the end, then, is a collection of easily approachable, short works of poetry that tend to shy away from a philosophical or fantastic focus. That is not to say that the philosophic and fantastic are not there in the poets' intentions, thoughts and/or subtext, but they do not overwhelm the pieces. As for the editor's contributions, he formats each page by introducing the poems with a few sentences about them printed above, but I found that the best way to read the work was to start with the poem itself and then read the editor's note. I felt that reading these notes undermined the sense of mystery and discovery that comes with navigating one's way through a new poem, though reading these thoughts after usually provided me with some new insight into the piece. However, I did feel that his interpretations left little room for argument and undermined the multiple layers that many of the works here comprise. It was as if there could be no individual readings that differed from what Milosz thought - though this was not always the case, and more obvious in his tone than his content. Another point of bother was his critique of some of the works; for example, his note on Jean Follain's "School and Nature" - "Frankly, the modernist technique consisting of unexpected associations is not to my liking, as at the end of this poem, in which drops of blood fall upon a road. In order to understand this, we must presume that there are hunters in the neighborhood, that they shot a bird, and that a wounded bird flies over the road" (p. 162). These are rare, but when they are there I can see no constructive purpose; if someone likes the image they may feel embarrassed or frustrated that the editor has forced them into arguing with them, and if they interpret the image a different way than his literal understanding, an unconfident reader may feel, again, embarrassed, and one more sure of themselves may feel irritated at the editor's apparent limitations. In any event, I can see no good in this type of note, especially in that it is printed before the poem itself and thus one may be inclined to read it before the poem, probably putting a damper on their experience. As I said before, however, this type of thing doesn't happen too often, and when it does we can forgive it, because, qualms aside, this is a very good collection of poetry. Though not every piece is awe inducing, to ask this would be somewhat ludicrous, and more often than not the works were quite enjoyable. I found many that touched me deeply, and almost all of them had multiple ways in which they could be interpreted, multiple layers and viewpoints, and thus one can come back to any number of poems again and again. Layers aside, these are all works that are short, approachable and enjoyable enough to be reread multiple times, and as long as one knows to read the editor's note after, not before as the format suggests, the poem itself, anyone can find great value in this collection.