Asymmetry: Poems
By Adam Zagajewski and Clare Cavanagh
4/5
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About this ebook
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.
Adam Zagajewski
Adam Zagajewski (1945–2021) was born in Lvov, Poland. His books include Tremor; Canvas; Mysticism for Beginners; Without End; Eternal Enemies; Unseen Hand; Asymmetry; Solidarity, Solitude; Two Cities; Another Beauty; A Defense of Ardor; and Slight Exaggeration—all published by FSG. He lived in Chicago and Kraków.
Read more from Adam Zagajewski
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Asymmetry - Adam Zagajewski
I
NOWHERE
It was a day nowhere just after I got back from my father’s funeral,
a day between two continents; lost, I walked the streets
of Hyde Park catching shreds of American voices.
I belonged nowhere, I was free,
but if this is freedom, I thought, I’d rather be
a good king’s, a kindly emperor’s, captive;
leaves swam against red autumn’s current,
the wind yawned like a foxhound,
the cashier in a grocery store, nowhere,
couldn’t place my accent and asked Where are you from?
but I’d forgotten, I wanted to tell her
about my father’s death, then thought: I’m too old
to be an orphan; I was living
in Hyde Park, nowhere, Where fun comes to die,
as college students elsewhere said, a little enviously.
It was a faceless Monday, craven,
vague, a day without inspiration, nowhere, even grief
didn’t take a radical shape; it strikes me
that on such days even Chopin would commit himself
at best to giving lessons
to wealthy, aristocratic pupils;
suddenly I remembered what Doctor Gottfried Benn,
the Berlin dermatologist, said about him
in one of my favorite poems:
"when Delacroix expounded his theories,
it made him nervous, he for his