106
PARTI SAN R EVIEW
Wojciech Karpinski:
R oad-side DoJZ
is a wo nderful volume of poetry that
will soon appear in English .
It
is written by a man in hi s ninth decade, an
exceptional achi evement both in Po li sh li terature and in our times. The
book's strength is its simplicity; it fo rgoes compli ca ted intell ectual analy–
ses, di splays of erudition , lingui sti c ac robati cs, and semanti c games. There
are no flights of lofty style. Th ese poems are sketches fr om life, surpri sing
in their baldness and acc uracy, whi ch belo ng to th e very essence of poet–
ry. The essences of
Road-side Do,\!.
are amazin gly close to the experi ence of
life in moments of radi ant awareness, untainted by patterns o f rati o nal spec–
ulati o n. The meaning of these "existenti al essences" is no t easy to g rasp.
T hese poems are the unprecedented accompli shment o f an emin ent writer
who, late in life, di sca rds the crutches and fetters of strict forms and speaks
with youthful directness .
In
R oad-side DoJZ,
Milosz provocatively and coura–
geously reveals hi s own truth , w ith out fea r o f being label ed old-fashi oned .
The book brings to mind pages from Joseph Czapski 's
Diary.
In
Milosz
and in Czapski there is a similar yearning to explode fo rms and patterns, a
similar lingui stic effo rt. Czapski would have been deli ghted with Mil osz's
new book-and so would Ni co lo C hi aromo nte, whom Mil osz, in hi s
A BC
Boo k,
named as o ne of th e heroic personali ti es o f the twe nti eth century.
In
reading
R oad-side Do,\!.
I wonder if Mil osz merely breaks with the
constraints of fo rm and current fas hi on. He begins by confessing: " I se t ofT
to kn ow my ea rth in a ho rse-drawn wagon , w ith a large suppl y of ho rse–
feed and a tin pail clanging in th e bac k." I looked at thi s new fo ray and
returned no t just to Mil osz's poe ti c wo rks, but to
Cardcll of Kll olll/ed,\!.e
and
Land
of
U/ro.
Pages I had read many times drew me into new lands.
R oad- side Dog
and the assoc iated readings made me rea li ze more
fo rcefull y than ever befo re that in trac kin g Mil osz's g rowin g body o f
work , I have parti cipated in an unusual spiri tual tas k. In deed , I have
watched with wonder and fasc inati on . But fo r an instant I am as hamed to
take pride in someo ne e lse's accompli shm ents and remember
Gombrowi cz's wo rds: "The hell w ith geniuses!" Yet I recall that
Gombrowicz, when thinking o f Mi cki ewi cz in parti sa n terms, saw the
limitations that res trained him and , like Moses, wa nted to lead hi s fell ow
Pol es o ut o f those limitati o ns. [ also remember Mil osz's warnin gs in
"Zeal" in
Cardell
~r Kll o l ll/e~\!.(':
" He would be deludin g himself who
thought th at his own bein g flrst- or second- rate depended so lely o n him
and no t on the culture in whi ch he was bro ught up ." Mil osz attac hed
exceptional weight to th e idea of th e "es tate" of a give n culture, a give n
literature as well as the es tate o f a give n person.
Milosz's accompli shments have determin ed hi s impo rtance.
R oad-side
Dog
becomes our earth , un attainabl e yet constantly seen anew with
renewed powers of observati on. We should foll ow hi s advice in
R oad-side
