Continued is a selection of poems by Piotr Sommer, spanning his career to date. A kind of poetic utterance, these “talk poems” are devoid of any singsong quality yet faithfully preserve all the melodies and rhythms of colloquial speech. Events and objects of ordinary, everyday life are related and described by the speaker in a deliberately deadpan manner. Yet a closer look at the language he uses, with all its ironic inflections and subtle “intermeanings,” reveals that the poem’s “message” should be identified more with the way it is spoken than with what it says. The poems in this volume were translated into English with the help of other notable poets, writers, and translators, including John Ashbery, D.J. Enright, and Douglas Dunn. Hardcover is un-jacketed.

Continued (Wesleyan Poetry Series)

Literature & Fiction

Sommer, Piotr

Poetry

Wesleyan University Press

Continued is a selection of poems by Piotr Sommer, spanning his career to date. A kind of poetic utterance, these “talk poems” are devoid of any singsong quality yet faithfully preserve all the melodies and rhythms of colloquial speech. Events and objects of ordinary, everyday life are related and described by the speaker in a deliberately deadpan manner. Yet a closer look at the language he uses, with all its ironic inflections and subtle “intermeanings,” reveals that the poem’s “message” should be identified more with the way it is spoken than with what it says. The poems in this volume were translated into English with the help of other notable poets, writers, and translators, including John Ashbery, D.J. Enright, and Douglas Dunn.

Piotr Sommer is one of Poland's leading poets. The translations were made with the help of leading British and American poets, including John Ashbery, Douglas Dunn and D.J. Enright. This edition is now out of print but most of the poems are included in his later selection Continued (2005).'Piotr Sommer's poetry is low-key and terse: to adapt one of his phrases, it wants to say nothing it doesn't need to. Irony there is, but it keeps its head down, while the occasional uncertain joke raises an uncertain smile. Obliquity is the rule. An old dog entertains metaphysical thoughts, and in its own way expresses an opinion. or a knock on the door announces a milkwoman, not the secret police, but the one caller mirrors the other. This collection is marked by a disenchanted cheerfulness, a looking (or squinting) on the bright side. Even if new bathroom fittings were somehow acquired, it would still be necessary to get up early. And obtain a travel permit is a joyful event, denied to those who can go wherever they like. In one of his poems Czeslaw Milosz is amazed that "my Muse, Mnemosyne" fails to diminish his amazement. Sommer shares this same muse: "The heart doesn't give up easily." Countries with long and tortured histories have long and sometimes precious memories." - D.J. Enright

Things to Translate & Other Poems

Adams, Ed

Bloodaxe Books Ltd.

Przed snem

Biuro Literackie

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