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I Wrote Stone: The Selected Poetry of Ryszard Kapuscinski (Biblioasis International Translation Series)

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For those familiar with Kapuscinski`s commanding oeuvre of journalistic prose works, `I Wrote Stone,` will come as somewhat of a surprise. This small volume of poems is not what one would expect from the the writer who so vividly and movingly captured the spirit and flavor of such varied realms as Stalin`s Russia, Haile`s Ethiopia and the Shah`s Iran.

Yet, for those who have read Kapuscinski not only for his gripping travel narratives, but also for his stunning command of language, `I Wrote Stone,` will be no surprise, rather a delight. With only 90 poems written in the same terse yet powerful style of his prose works, `I Wrote Stone,` shows a side of the `great reporter` he rarely divulged in his better-known works. Relying on the more intimate form of subjective free verse, Kapuscinski explores subjects as diverse as the last hours of a dying soldier to painful self-examinations of a writer who acknowleged himself to be as much an enigma as were many of his more famous subjects. Throughout the poems, one constantly hears the cry of the individual struggling to maintain its independent spirit against an indifferent natural world. Kapuscinski`s universe is one where the `laws of nature` reign supreme. A world where the individual struggles to be heard but is ulitimately drowned out by the natural or man-made sea that surrounds him/her. Those expecting confessional or emotion-rich verse will be disappointed with these poems. Kapuscinski holds his cards close to the chest even when faced with succombing to a long battle with cancer. Feelings are kept to a minimum in these poems, and where they do pop up, they are all the more powerful for it.

Even with his poetry, Kapuscinski was a man obsessed with the outside, the `other` beyond the individual self. One senses that Kapuscinski escaped to his exotic locales in order to escape from dealing with matters closer to home, i.e. himself. Ever the objectivity-seeking reporter of the modern condition, Kapuscinski nonetheless clearly documents the problem of one knowing a lot about the other, but precious little about oneself. He writes with a candor no doubt painful, `I withdrew so far from myself that I am no longer able to speak about myself or what I feel...`Prosaic words, but somehow Kapuscinski makes them sing. As he did with all his words.

While maybe not as masterfully crafted as the poems of Szymborska or Swir, Kapuscinski`s stark and often cyptic verse points to one of the grand problems of our age: our spiritual and emotional distance from ourselves and from others. Kapuscinski not doubt `wrote stone,` for his words carry a message all need to hear, regardless of context or time. `You must learn what is singularity and that it be not arrogance but strength.` Wise words for our internet age.