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    Asymmetry: Poems
    Asymmetry: Poems
    Asymmetry: Poems
    Ebook69 pages44 minutes

    Asymmetry: Poems

    By Adam Zagajewski and Clare Cavanagh

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    About this ebook

    A stunning new collection from Poland’s leading poet

    Give me back my childhood,
    republic of loquacious sparrows,
    measureless thickets of nettles
    and the timid wood owl's nightly sobs.

    One of the most vibrant voices of our time, Adam Zagajewski is a modern master of the poetic form. In Asymmetry, his first collection of poems in five years, he revisits the themes that have long concerned him: the enduring imprint of history, the beauty of nature, the place of the exile. Though as sanguine as ever, Zagajewski often turns to elegy in this deeply powerful collection, remembering loved ones he’s lost: a hairdresser, the philosopher Krzystzof Michalski, and, most poignantly, his parents. A moving reflection on family, the sublimity of everyday life, death, and happiness, Asymmetry is a magnificent distillation of an astounding poetic voice.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateNov 20, 2018
    ISBN9780374715267
    Asymmetry: Poems
    Author

    Adam Zagajewski

    Adam Zagajewski (1945–2021) was born in Lvov, Poland. His books include Tremor; Canvas; Mysticism for Beginners; Without End; Eternal Enemies; Unseen Hand; Asymmetry; Solidarity, Solitude; Two Cities; Another Beauty; A Defense of Ardor; and Slight Exaggeration—all published by FSG. He lived in Chicago and Kraków.

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      Book preview

      Asymmetry - Adam Zagajewski

      I

      NOWHERE

      It was a day nowhere just after I got back from my father’s funeral,

      a day between two continents; lost, I walked the streets

      of Hyde Park catching shreds of American voices.

      I belonged nowhere, I was free,

      but if this is freedom, I thought, I’d rather be

      a good king’s, a kindly emperor’s, captive;

      leaves swam against red autumn’s current,

      the wind yawned like a foxhound,

      the cashier in a grocery store, nowhere,

      couldn’t place my accent and asked Where are you from?

      but I’d forgotten, I wanted to tell her

      about my father’s death, then thought: I’m too old

      to be an orphan; I was living

      in Hyde Park, nowhere, Where fun comes to die,

      as college students elsewhere said, a little enviously.

      It was a faceless Monday, craven,

      vague, a day without inspiration, nowhere, even grief

      didn’t take a radical shape; it strikes me

      that on such days even Chopin would commit himself

      at best to giving lessons

      to wealthy, aristocratic pupils;

      suddenly I remembered what Doctor Gottfried Benn,

      the Berlin dermatologist, said about him

      in one of my favorite poems:

      "when Delacroix expounded his theories,

      it made him nervous, he for his

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