ABSTRACT
If you admire the poetry of Czeslaw Milosz (1911-2004) and especially Wislawa Szymborska (b. 1923), seek out Piotr Sommer (b. 1948). Based on Continued, the engaging versions of which have been made by Halina Janod working with co-translators (thirteen in all, including John Ashbery, Douglas Dunn, and D. J. Enright), Sommer deserves a place alongside these philosophically alert Polish poets. Let me add that he joins their company almost offhandedly. He is graced with an original kind of curiosity that scrutinizes at once the fine details of the quotidian and, at a gentle remove, its foibles. He obviously relishes common words and expressions for their own sake, all the while poking fun at poetic gravitas by wondering—in “Little Graves” notably—where he will be buried and commenting that “my thing is talking, / but in fact I like to listen, that is, to ask things”; or, inversely—in “Lighter, Darker”—that
