Czeslaw Milosz - New and Collected Poems: 1931-2001 (Ecco, 2003). 776 pages.

New scan. Searchable pdf (clearscan) with contents (major sections, not every poem) in bookmarks, accurate pagination and metadata, etc.

Czeslaw Milosz (1911-2004) was a Polish poet who spent much of his life in the USA. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1980. In addition to poetry he wrote novels and essays on many topics. His book The Captive Mind (available here: http://piratebayproxy.live/torrent/8060555 ) remains well-known as a dissection of the Communist mind-set he experienced in Poland.

Milosz is my favorite poet, though I've read only the poetry from late in his life; the early stuff is much harder to understand. His late poetry is deceptively simple and direct. But with a bit of mulling it's transcendent beauty becomes visible.

This poem from 1985 was the first Milosz poem I read, and remains one I love:


A CONFESSION

My Lord, I loved strawberry jam
And the dark sweetness of a woman's body.
Also well-chilled vodka, herring in olive oil,
Scents, of cinnamon, of cloves.
So what kind of prophet am I? Why should the spirit
Have visited such a man? Many others
Were justly called, and trustworthy.
Who would have trusted me? For they saw
How I empty glasses, throw myself on food,
And glance greedily at the waitress's neck.
Flawed and aware of it. Desiring greatness,
Able to recognize greatness wherever it is,
And yet not quite, only in part, clairvoyant,
I knew what was left for smaller men like me:
A feast of brief hopes, a rally of the proud,
A tournament of hunchbacks, literature.


If you can see why this is so wonderful, you might like this book.