Second Space: New Poems [Hardcover]

Czeslaw Milosz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 5, 2004

Nobel laureate Czeslaw Milosz's most recent collection Second Space marks a new stage in one of the great poetic pilgrimages of our time. Few poets have inhabited the land of old age as long or energetically as Milosz, for whom this territory holds both openings and closings, affirmations as well as losses. "Not soon, as late as the approach of my ninetieth year, / I felt a door opening in me and I entered / the clarity of early morning," he writes in "Late Ripeness." Elsewhere he laments the loss of his voracious vision -- "My wondrously quick eyes, you saw many things, / Lands and cities, islands and oceans" -- only to discover a new light that defies the limits of physical sight: "Without eyes, my gaze is fixed on one bright point, / That grows large and takes me in."

Second Space is typically capacious in the range of voices, forms, and subjects it embraces. It moves seamlessly from dramatic monologues to theological treatises, from philosophy and history to epigrams, elegies, and metaphysical meditations. It is unified by Milosz's ongoing quest to find the bond linking the things of this world with the order of a "second space," shaped not by necessity, but grace. Second Space invites us to accompany a self-proclaimed "apprentice" on this extraordinary quest. In "Treatise on Theology," Milosz calls himself "a one day's master." He is, of course, far more than this. Second Space reveals an artist peerless both in his capacity to confront the world's suffering and in his eagerness to embrace its joys: "Sun. And sky. And in the sky white clouds. / Only now everything cried to him: Eurydice! / How will I live without you, my consoling one! / But there was a fragrant scent of herbs, the low humming of bees, / And he fell asleep with his cheek on the sun-warmed earth."

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The title's second space comprises heaven and hell, which have "vanished forever"; without them the blessed cannot "meet salvation" and the damned "find suitable quarters." In mourning, the poet exhorts: "Let us implore that it be returned to us,/ That second space." The Nobel laureate, who died this past summer in Kraków at 93, is preoccupied in this collection with establishing that space through words, but also finds it in carnality and in "the unattainable Now." The opening section of summative short lyrics on themes familiar from late Milosz (memory, salvation, place) is followed by four long poems. "Father Severinus" is an eponymous 11-poem dramatic monologue of a priest (who shares one of the names of medieval philosopher Boethius) in whom there is "only a hope of hope." Next comes "Treatise on Theology" ("A young man couldn't write a treatise like this,/ Though I don't think it is dictated by fear of death"), followed by "Apprentice," a beautiful autobiography in verse (with extensive prose annotations by Milosz) and finally a stunning, short "Orpheus and Eurydice": "His lyre was silent and in his dream he was defenseless./ He knew he must have faith and he could not have faith./ And so he would persist, for a very long time,/ Counting his steps in a half-wakeful torpor." The terrors, torpors and partial redemptions of this collection feel wholly earned.
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From Booklist

*Starred Review* The last collection that the late Nobel laureate himself prepared for publication shows him wrestling with faith and disbelief, sin and redemption, death and immortality. Two of its five parts contain very religiously concerned sequences. In the poems of part 2, "Father Severinus," a priest weighs church history and his own history: "Can I tell them: there is no Hell," he asks, "when they learn on earth what Hell is?" Part 33, in Milosz's own voice, is a "Treatise on Theology" that eventually acknowledges that, although it is his "duty as a poet [to] not flatter popular imaginings," he still desires to keep faith with Our Lady at Fatima and Lourdes. If the tributary sequence to his great forebear and inspiration, Oscar Milosz (1877-1939), seems more secular, yet at its heart are his uncle's poetic anticipation of Einsteinian relativity, which allows for the initial creative act of God, and comparison of his uncle to the great mystic Emmanuel Swedenborg. One of the short poems of part 1 expresses what is perhaps the most certain conviction in the book, that "if there is no God," a man is still "not permitted to sadden his brother / By saying that there is no God." This is a great last book. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 112 pages
• Publisher: Ecco; First Edition edition (October 5, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060745665
• ISBN-13: 978-0060745660
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,076,147 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Milosz' Second Space, March 9, 2005

By 

Robin Friedman (Washington, D.C. United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Second Space: New Poems (Hardcover)

"Second Space" is a collection of thirty-two poems on religious themes by Czeslaw Milosz (1911 -- 2004) written when the poet was in his 90s. The poems are heavily autobiographical in tone, meditative, and reflective. They deal with Milosz' struggle for religious, and in particular Catholic, faith in a world of secularism, mechanism, and suffering. They also describe the conflict in Milosz' own life between the call to the religious life and the lure of the world, with its natural beauty, and human sexuality. Milosz tries to reconcile the tensions among these two polarities.

The book is dense and richly detailed with allusions to Polish poets, to Milosz' relatives, particularly to his cousin Oscar Milosz (1877-1939) a French poet and diplomat, and to the mystical thinkers Jacob Boehme and Emmanuel Swedenborg, who have deeply influenced Milosz and his approach to religious questions.

The book is divided into five parts. The first part consists of a series of short poems discussing the poet's struggle for religious meaning. In many of these poems, Milosz revisits and reflects upon his life. The title of the book "Second Space" derives from the first poem of the collection in which Milosz laments the difficulty of conceiving of a "second space" in our modern world -- the space of both heaven and hell. Milosz writes in a clear style with many striking figures and phrases. Thus, he concludes his poem, "The Old Women" with the benediction: "May the day of your death not be a day of hopelessness,/ but of trust in the light that shines through earthly forms."

The second part of the book is a series of eleven interior monologues by "Father Severinus," who describes himself in the first poem as "a priest without faith". In these poems, Father Severnus meditates on the importance, mystery, and difficulty of a spiritual life as he describes his own internal struggles and the struggles of some of the people who come to him for help.

The third part of the book is in Milosz' own voice and consists of 23 poems forming a "Treatise on Theology." These poems are in the voice of the layperson -- the poet himself -- rather than of Father Severnus, but the themes and preoccupations are the same. They are epitomized in the final poem of this group, "Beautiful Lady" in which Milosz describes his responses to the appearances of the Virgin Mary at Lourdes and Fatima.

The fourth part of the book, "Apprentice", is the poet's tribute to the work of his cousin, the French poet Oscar Milosz. This poem is richly personal and allusive, and Milosz accompanies it with extensive notes. I found it helpful to read the poem first with the notes followed by a reading straight through without the notes -- which tend to interfere with the text.

The book concludes with what to may mind is its best section, a brief retelling of the "Orpheus and Euridice" legend in modern garb with Milosz himself as the protagonist. Orpheus in this retelling struggles with the loss of religous conviction as much as with the loss of his beloved. There is an eloquent pasage in this poem in which Milosz describes the goal of his poetic endeavor:

"He sang the brightness of morning and green rivers,
He sang of smoking water in the rose-colored daybreaks,
Of colors: cinnabar, carmine, burnt sienna, blue,
Of the delight of swimming in the sea under marble cliffs,
Of feasting on a terrace above the tumult of a fishing port,
Of the tasts of wine, olive oil, almonds, mustard, salt.
Of the flight of the swallow, the falcon,
Of a dignified flock of pelicans above a bay,
Of the scene of an armful of lilacs in summer rain,
Of his having composed his words always against death
And of having made no rhyme in praise of nothingness."

"Second Space" is a moving valedictory volume by a great Twentieth Century poet.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Spiritually luminous, lyrically elegant...(20 Stars!), January 22, 2005

By 

Arthur F. McVarish (Houston, TX USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Second Space: New Poems (Hardcover)

Nobel laureate Czeslaw Milosz'first collection of poetry publiblished since his death this past August continues to reveal the man as perhaps the 20th century's greatest poet. Students of literature familiar with his work marvel at the depth of his insight into the human conditions most challenging quandaries.His range of experience...in formative political, philosophical and religious movements of our modern-segueing-into-Post Modern age of Anxiety and violence...is nothing short of astounding. His artistic expression thereof,comprises genius.

SECOND SPACE resonates with profundity. Yet Milosz'art is astonishingly void of linguistic pyrotechnics or artifice. The erudition of Eliot...or Dante himself...is manifest without recourse to numbingly recondite metaphor,scholarship or ars- gratias-artist machinery.This"poet for all seasons"is startlingly straight-forward;lyrically"simple".Like reprise of St.Augustine's CONFESSIONS[or his own(1995)FACING the RIVER], Milosz directly states intention to remember with honor;and...in PRAYERful acknowledgement and humility...if possible, RECOVER the
source and ultimate respite of Mankind's humanity. TRUTH...peace and salvation; or condign damnation...is the province and provenance of THE SECOND SPACE.

Challenging the epigones(& tenth-rate homies of the PM Press)of Nietzsche and hack-Heideggerians,Milosz replies to the brazen, self-POSSESSED;self-apotheosizing nihilists foreseen by Dostoyevsky:
"IF THERE IS NO GOD,NOT EVERYTHING IS PERMITTED TO MAN/ HE IS STILL HIS BROTHER'S KEEPER/AND HE IS NOT PERMITTED TO SADDEN HIS BROTHER,BY SAYING THERE IS NO GOD(p.5)."

Spiritually luminous,lyrically elegant poem-after-poems rebuke: Scientism [p.25:"The beauty of nature is suspect/Oh yes,the splendor of flowers: SCIENCE is concerned to deprive us of illusions/Though why it is eager to do so is unclear..."].Rank materialism ["What have they left us?...Only the accountancy of a capitalist enterprise"].Pseudo-wisdom & the occult...WHEN THE SUN RISES/IT ILLUMINATES STUPIDITY AND GUILT.WHICH ARE HIDDEN IN THE NOOKS OF MEMORY/AND INVISIBLE AT NOON(p.34).
DESPAIR of the PM Sophists(who attack the Sacred...in the womb;the marriage bed and the TABERNACLE itself):"Hear me,Lord! Protect me from the day of dryness and impotence/When neither a swallow's flight nor peonies,daffodils and irises in the flower market are a sign of your glory/WHEN I WILL BE SURROUNDED BY SCOFFERS,AND UNABLE...AGAINST THEIR ARGUMENTS...TO REMEMBER ANY MIRACLE OF YOURS/When I will seem to myself an imposter and swindler because I take part in religious rites/When I accuse YOU of establishing the universal law of death/WHEN I AM READY AT LAST TO BOW DOWN TO NOTHINGNESS/AND CALL LIFE ON EARTH
A DEVIL'S VAUDVILLE/Hear me Lord,for I am a sinner/which means I have nothing except prayer!"(p.24)

Yet THIS POET does not lack wicked humor:"And Katie? She does not want to be saved/At the price of an innocent man...Her father kneels every Sunday at his church/Because what would you introduce in place of his religion?...Perhaps the idiotic rituals
of THE PARTY/ Or football games ending in a brawl(p.38)."
Nor does CZESLAW MILOSZ ever lack HOPE["May the day of your death...be of trust in the light that shines through earthly forms" p.12);"Yet I repeat,'I believe in God'."(p.20)

And in the End...which this heroic philosopher and poet went to on August 14,2004,Czeslaw Milosz(with ever able assistance of his friend,fellow poet-and-translator,Robert Hass)declares in ultimate, poetic testimony to God and Goodness: SUN.AND SKY./AND IN THE SKY WHITE CLOUDS/ONLY NOW EVERYTHING CRIED TO HIM/EURYDICE!...HOW WILL I LIVE WITHOUT YOU,MY CONSOLING ONE!
BUT THERE WAS A FRAGRANT SCENT OF HERBS/THE LOW HUMMING OF BEES(Winnie-the-Pooh is back in action!)/AND HE FELL ASLEEP WITH HIS CHEEK ON THE SUN-WARMED EARTH......(p.102)

Amen,Amen I say to you:TAKE AND READ!(20 stars)

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The master craftsman speaks to us posthumously, October 10, 2005

By 

Martin H. Dickinson "Walker in the woods, dis... (Washington, D.C.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Second Space: New Poems (Hardcover)

Milosz is a master of the craft. This collection published posthumously reminds us all that he richly deserved the Nobel Prize. How many poets can we point to that were writing after the age of 90? Milosz is humble about his perceptions of the world but his horizon is vast--enough to take in both faith and doubt in the same work. Of very special note in the collection is the poem "Eyes."

"My most honorable eyes, you are not in the best of shape.
I receive from you an image less than sharp, . . . "

"Eyes" is a poem of depth and true insight, which tells us something about a way of looking at the world as one moves on in life, "away from the fairgrounds of the world." There is an inner life, a deep inner truth which takes in all. It is a vision at once mystical and secular.

Milosz is a master, straddling eras and cultures. What can a 90-plus-year-old poet tell us about sexuality and desire? Amazing things--revelations, truly. But don't expect the cheap sensuality of popular culture.

Milosz and his poems have endured throughout our lives and will remain with us for a very long time. In Second Space he opens up a space that is rich and exciting.