Collected Poems [Paperback]

Czeslaw Milosz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 21, 1990

To find my home in one sentence, concise, as if hammered in metal. No to enchant anybody. Not to earn a lasting name in posterity. An unnamed need for order, for rhythm, for form, which three words are opposed to chaos and nothingness.
-- Czeslaw Milosz

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Czeslaw Milosz was born in Lithuania in 1911. His books of poetry in English include The Collected Poems, 1931-1987, Unattainable Earth, The Separate Notebooks, Provinces, Bells in Winter, and Selected Poems, all published by The Ecco, Press. He is a member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1980.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

ARTIFICER

Burning, he walks in the stream of flickering letters, clarinets,
machines throbbing quicker than the heart, lopped-off heads, silk
canvases, and he stops under the sky

and raises toward it his joined clenched fists.

Believers fall on their bellies, they suppose it is a monstrance that
shines,

but those are knuckles, sharp knuckles shine that way, my friends.

He cuts the glowing, yellow buildings in two, breaks the walls into
motley halves;
pensive, he looks at the honey seeping from those huge
honeycombs:
throbs of pianos, children's cries, the thud of a head banging against
the floor.
This is the only landscape able to make him feel.

He wonders at his brother's skull shaped like an egg,
every day he shoves back his black hair from his brow,
then one day he plants a big load of dynamite
and is surprised that afterward everything spouts up in the
explosion.
Agape, he observes the clouds and what is hanging in them:
globes, penal codes, dead cats floating on their backs, locomotives.

They turn in the skeins of white clouds like trash in a puddle.
While below on the earth a banner, the color of a romantic rose,

flutters,
and a long row of military trains crawls on the weed-covered

tracks.

Wilno, 1931

Product Details

• Paperback: 528 pages
• Publisher: Ecco (May 21, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0880011742
• ISBN-13: 978-0880011747
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,276,265 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Phenomenal, January 17, 2011

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Max - See all my reviews

This review is from: Collected Poems (Paperback)

I highly recommend this collection -- Czeslaw Milosz is perhaps my favorite poet. His haunting, lyrical style speaks so much to the beauty in humanity. If you're even thinking about purchasing this collection, do it.