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.

Asymmetry: Poems

Literature & Fiction

Zagajewski, Adam

Poetry

Farrar. Straus and Giroux

Canvas, Zagajewski's second book to appear in English, features all of this poet's distinctive traits. In these sixty-one poems, syntax explodes, masses of detail spill from profuse catalogs, lines break in ways apt but unexpected, and compressed lyrics alternate with extended riffs. European culture is the poet's native province throughout these explorations, and time is a recurrent metaphysical concern.

Canvas

Farrar. Straus & Giroux

A Defense of Ardor: Essays

Ardor, inspiration, the soul, the sublime: Such terms have long since fallen from favor among critics and artists alike. In his new collection of essays, Adam Zagajewski continues his efforts to reclaim for art not just the terms but the scanted spiritual dimension of modern human existence that they stake out. Bringing gravity and grace to his meditations on art, society, and history, Zagajewski wears his erudition lightly, with a disarming blend of modesty and humor. His topics range from autobiography (his first visit to a post-Soviet Lvov after childhood exile; his illicit readings of Nietzsche in Communist Poland); to considerations of artist friends past and present (Zbigniew Herbert, Czeslaw Milosz); to intellectual and psychological portraits of cities he has known, east and west; to a dazzling thumbnail sketch of postwar Polish poetry. Zagajewski gives an account of the place of art in the modern age that distinguishes his self-proclaimed liberal vision from the “right-wing radicalism” of such modernist precursors as Eliot or Yeats. The same mixture of ardor and compassion that marks Zagajewski’s distinctive contribution to modern poetry runs throughout this eloquent, engaging collection.

Essays & Correspondence

A poet describes coming of age in Communist Poland while the Party is losing power and the opposition grows in strength.

Another Beauty

Biographies & Memoirs

Cavanagh, Clare

Arts & Literature

Eternal Enemies

The highway became the Red Sea. We moved through the storm like a sheer valley. You drove; I looked at you with love. ―from "Storm" One of the most gifted and readable poets of his time, Adam Zagajewski is proving to be a contemporary classic. Few writers in either poetry or prose can be said to have attained the lucid intelligence and limpid economy of style that have become a matter of course with Zagajewski. It is these qualities, combined with his wry humor, gentle skepticism, and perpetual sense of history's dark possibilities, that have earned him a devoted international following. This collection, gracefully translated by Clare Cavanagh, finds the poet reflecting on place, language, and history. Especially moving here are his tributes to writers, friends known in person or in books―people such as Milosz and Sebald, Brodsky and Blake―which intermingle naturally with portraits of family members and loved ones. Eternal Enemies is a luminous meeting of art and everyday life.

Eternal Enemies: Poems

Powerful New work by a modern master. You must listen, listen, listen. Tired springs breathe under water. At four in the morning the last, lonely bolt of lightning scribbles something quickly in the sky. It says "No." Or "Never." Or "Take courage, the fire's not dead." -from "The Last Storm" Mysticism for Beginners is the third and most beautiful of Adam Zagajewski's collections to appear in English. The poems are about nature, history, the life of cities, the transformations of art, the spiritual essence of everyday life. Their remarkable staying power derives from the gentle meditative authority of Zagajewski's voice, here expertly rendered into English by Clare Cavanagh. Zagajewski's committed, compassionate poems offer access to the mysteries at the heart of experience.

Mysticism for Beginners: Poems

A new essay collection by the noted Polish poet
For Adam Zagajewski―one of Poland’s great poets―the project of writing, whether it be poetry or prose, is an occasion to advance what David Wojahn has characterized as his “restless and quizzical quest for self-knowledge.” Slight Exaggeration is an autobiographical portrait of the poet, arranged not chronologically but with that same luminous quality that distinguishes Zagajewski’s spellbinding poetry―an affinity for the invisible. 
In a mosaic-like blend of criticism, reflections, European history, and aphoristic musings, Zagajewski tells the stories of his life in glimpses and reveries―from the Second World War and the occupation of Poland that left his family dispossessed to Joseph Brodsky’s funeral on the Venetian island of San Michele―interspersed with intellectual interrogations of the writers and poets (D. H. Lawrence, Giorgos Seferis, Zbigniew Herbert, Paul Valéry), composers and painters (Brahms, Rembrandt), and modern heroes (Helmuth James Graf von Moltke) who have influenced his work. 
A wry and philosophical defense of mystery, Slight Exaggeration recalls Zagajewski’s poetry in its delicate negotiation between the earthbound and the ethereal, “between brief explosions of meaning and patient wandering through the plains of ordinary days.” With an enduring inclination to marvel, Zagajewski restores the world to us―necessarily incomplete and utterly astonishing.

Slight Exaggeration: An Essay

The second collection of autobiographical and literary writing by one of Poland's greatest contemporary poets features a Job-like letter to God and a series of short philosophical essays, among other writings. By the author of Solidarity, Solitude.

Two Cities: On Exile, History, and the Imagination

History & Criticism

One of the most gifted poets of our time, Adam Zagajewski is a contemporary classic. Few writers in poetry or prose have attained the lucid intelligence and limpid economy of style that are the trademarks of his work. His wry humor, gentle skepticism, and perpetual sense of history's dark possibilities have earned him a devoted international following. This collection, gracefully translated by Clare Cavanagh, finds the poet returning to the themes that have defined his career―moving meditations on place, language, and history. Unseen Hand is a luminous meeting of art and everyday life.

Unseen Hand: Poems

A collection of poems by one who is widely regarded as the leading Polish poet of his generation and the first to confront the realities of a one-party state and the road to exile. Now living in Paris, this is Zagajewski's first volume of poetry to be published in the West.

Tremor: Selected Poems

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Books by Zagajewski, Adam