Praise
The startling juxtaposition of sensual and brutal histories, of human and animal flesh, of the experience of war and of writing is Rózewicz's great achievement...
I cannot imagine what post-war Polish poetry would have looked like without the poems of Tadeusz Rózewicz. We all owe something to him, though not all of us are able to admit it.
Rózewicz is a poet of chaos with a nostalgia for order. Around him and in himself he sees only broken fragments, a senseless rush.
His poems are extraordinary in their ordinariness.
Another chapter in Rózewicz's great poetic reckoning with the age in which it fell to him to live—a reckoning with his own biography, with poetry, with art, and with the mystery of human existence.
This book is filled with humor, irony, and language play; it inspires laughter and hope... Rózewicz seeks to shock with his juxtapositions, to demonstrate how much depends on one's perspective; he seeks to de-automatize thought... A superb reflection of reality.
Extras
- Read Robert Day’s “Close Encounters of the Literary Kind: John Ashbery and Tadeusz Rózewicz” in Numero Cinq.
- Rózewicz interviewed on 3:AM Magazine.
- Watch an episode of the Polish Cultural Center in New York’s series “Encounters with Polish Literature” about Rózewicz, in English.
- …and an episode of their series “Poetry Unites” about Rózewicz, presented by Edward Hirsch.