Adam Zagajewski - Without End: New and Selected Poems

Highlights of Poetry. Index of poetry. How to Write Poetry. New Books read.

How to write specific forms:
Haibun. Haiku. Hay(na)ku. Rengay. Tanka.
Concrete. Ghazal. Lai. Pantoum. Prose poem. Rondeau. Rubáiyát.
Sestina. Skaldic verse. Sonnet. Terza rima. Triolet. Tritina. Villanelle.

Poets: Adam Zagajewski. Billy Collins. Billy Collins exercise.
Snorri's Edda. Carl Dennis. Corey Marks. Franz Wright. Gary Young. The Gawain Poet.
J. Zimmerman. J. Zimmerman (haiku). J. Zimmerman (tanka).
Jack Gilbert. Jane Hirshfield. Jorie Graham. Karen Braucher. Kay Ryan.
Laureate Poets: Britain; USA.
Len Anderson. Li-Young Lee. Linda Pastan. Nordic Skalds. Pulitzer Poetry Prize (U.S.A).
Richard Hugo. Robert Bly. Sara Teasdale. Snorri's Edda. Stephen Dunn. Ted Kooser. W.S. Merwin.

Editor David Lehman. The Best American Poetry: 2006; Guest Editor Billy Collins.
The Best American Poetry: 2005; Guest Editor Paul Muldoon.

Without End: New and Selected Poems is a brilliant collection of poems by Adam Zagajewski. It contains 48 poems and 9 early (1970-1975) poems, all translated by Clare Cavanagh. Generous samplings are reprinted from Zagajewski's previous books:

Tremor (1985) (translator Renata Gorczynski);
Canvas (1991) (translators Renata Gorczynski, Benjamin Ivy, and C.K. Williams); and
Mysticism for Beginners (1997) (translator Clare Cavanagh).

Content.

Zagajewski is a poet of loss, of life before his birth, his own life, life without him, and life after his death.

While he is ready to write of ideas and emotions, he also fills his poems with the concrete world. From picking 30 or so poems at random in the book, I counted:

30 places. So, on average, each of his poems names a country (America, Bosnia, China) or a city (Paris, Jerusalem, Thebes), or a region (Sahara, Europe, Orient[al]) or a river (Seine).
22 creatures, 16 of which could fly (birds or insects). So, on average, about two-thirds of his poems name a creature (wolves, roe deer, and so on), and for a half it's a flying creatures (thrush, bees, wasps, falcon, bullfinch). This is interesting, as Zagajewski feels like a city dweller, yet still attached to nature.
18 people. So, on average, a half or more name a person (DeGaulle, Mary Stewart, Chopin).
15 plants, 12 of which were trees or tree-related. So, on average, about half of his poems name a plant (nettles, lavender), and most of those are tree-related (linden, spruce, acorns, rowans).
5 musical instuments: trumpet, accordion, harmonica, cello, violin.

Just from this small list, an average poem could have three different specifics that ground us, the same way that the specifics of nature ground us in a haiku.

Form.

Size ranges from 3 to 90 or more lines per poem. Often the poems are a single stanza, though sometimes a poem is divided into unequal stanzas or into equal stanzas each of 3, or 4, or 5, or 7, or 9 lines. The lines are of unequal length so the right margins are jagged. The translations are not rhymed, so perhaps the originals are not rhymed either.

Role models.

Buy and read and re-read Adam Zagajewski's Without End: New and Selected Poems (2002) or any other collection by Adam Zagajewski. These poems are your role models.

Links and Books.

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