Selected and Last Poems

The long-awaited paperback edition of Selected Poems, revised and updated with more than forty new poems never before published in English2011 marks the centenary year of one of the twentieth century’s most important poets, Nobel laureate Czeslaw Milosz. To mark the occasion, Anthony Milosz has translated into English the last poems his father wrote, granting readers new insight into the work of an unparalleled master of the form. Life opened for Czeslaw Milosz with the clash of civilizations in northeastern Europe. What unfolded around him was a century of catastrophe and madness: two world wars, revolutions, invasions, and the murders of tens of millions of people. In the thick of this upheaval, wide awake and in awe of living, Milosz tried to understand both history and the moment, with humble respect for the suffering of each individual. He wrote masterful poetry infused with a tireless spirit and a penetrating insight into fundamental human dilemmas and the staggering yet simple truth that “to exist on the earth is beyond any power to name.”