Poet in the New World

As editors and translators Hass and Frick explain in the introduction, this stunning volume from Nobel laureate Miłosz (The Last Poems) presents poems written between 1946 and 1950, “when he served as diplomatic official for the newly formed government of Poland at the consulate in New York City for six months, and then as cultural attaché to the embassy in Washington, D.C., for four years.” It’s a striking document of the poet transplanted to a new milieu, one in which he was “ideologically totally alien.” The poems themselves are bruised and lyrical, suffused with wry wisdom, cutting insights, and addresses to the self: “You swore never to be/ A ritual mourner.” Aphoristic phrases (“we live in the age of victorious justice”; “Enough about books. It is people who are important”) brush shoulders with extended narratives and elliptical explorations of violence witnessed and endured. Powerful, graceful, and thoughtfully contextualized, these poems offer rare insight into Miłosz the man and the artist. (Feb.)