Mysticism for Beginners Poems

by Zagajewski, Adam; Cavanagh, Clare

• ISBN13: 9780374526870
• ISBN10: 0374526877
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-04-15
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Summary

Powerful New work by a modern master. You must listen, listen, listen. Tired springs breathe under water. At four in the morningthe 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 Beginnersis 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 rered into English by Clare Cavanagh. Zagajewski's committed, compassionate poems offer access to the mysteries at the heart of experience. "Zagajewski's poetry has an immediate, beguiling intimacy . . . [This] is a collection to savour."--Helen Dunmore,The Observer(London) "So how can a poet--an intelligent, serious poet--write mystical verse now? The poetry of Adam Zagajewski provides the beginning of an answer to this question . . . Zagajewski's verse is unsettled and unsettling."--Adam Kirsch,The New Republic

Author Biography

Adam Zagajewski was born in Lvov, Poland, in 1945. His previous books include Tremor (1985) and Canvas (1991), both poetry, and Two Cities (1995), a collection of essays. His latest book is Without End: New and Selected Poems.

Table of Contents

A Quick Poem	3	(1)
Transformation	4	(1)
September	5	(2)
Mysticism for Beginners	7	(1)
Anthology	8	(1)
The Three Kings	9	(2)
The Greenhouse	11	(1)
Dutch Painters	12	(1)
Postcards	13	(1)
The Base Days Say Farewell	14	(1)
Shell	15	(1)
Iron Train	16	(1)
The Thirties	17	(1)
Search	18	(1)
Referendum	19	(1)
Refugees	20	(1)
Letter from a Reader	21	(1)
I Wasn't in This Poem	22	(1)
For M.	23	(1)
Far from Home	24	(1)
That's Sicily	25	(1)
You Are My Silent Brethren	26	(1)
Out Walking	27	(1)
Whatever Happened	28	(1)
Vermeer's Little Girl	29	(1)
Cicadas	30	(1)
Tierra del Fuego	31	(2)
Albi	33	(1)
Flags	34	(1)
Self-portrait	35	(2)
December Wind	37	(1)
Traveler	38	(1)
The House	39	(1)
Moment	40	(1)
Blackbird	41	(1)
Elegy	42	(2)
The Train to Maisons-Laffitte	44	(1)
Robespierre Before the Mirror	45	(1)
Cello	46	(1)
Degas: The Milliner's Shop	47	(1)
Planetarium	48	(1)
She Wrote in Darkness	49	(1)
Airport in Amsterdam	50	(2)
Night	52	(1)
Long Afternoons	53	(1)
To My Older Brother	54	(1)
The City Where I Want to Live	55	(1)
The Last Storm	56	(1)
Persephone	57	(1)
This Day's Nothingness	58	(1)
The Room I Work In	59	(1)
Three Angels	60	(2)
From Memory	62	(2)
Summer	64	(1)
Chinese Poem	65	(1)
Holy Saturday in Paris	66	(1)
On Swimming	67	(1)
Sisters of Mercy	68	(1)
Houston, 6 p.m.	69	(2)
I Walked Through the Medieval Town	71