Description:
The first English translation and publication of a Polish poet whose struggles with spiritual issues spark comparison to Czestaw Mitosz.
Brief description: Anna Kamienska (1920-1986) was a major Polish writer and a recognized peer of the Nobel Prize winners Wislawa Szymborska and Czeslaz Milosz. She left a rich legacy of twenty books of poetry, two volumes of Notebooks (a short-hand record of her readings and self-questioning), two volumes of commentaries on the Bible, and other writings and translations.
Review Quotes: "Kamienska, a major Polish writer, and equal to Nobel Prize winners Wislawa Szymborska and Czeslaw Milosz, grew up in the horrors of Nazi occupation and Communism. Her poetry is straightforward, full of empathy and self-discovery. It describes ordinary things - harvest time, childhood, grammer, and laundry on the balcony line. The death of her husband left her depressed and she sought the bible and other religious thinkers of the twentieth century. One line illustrates her thought processes and deep feelings over the loss of her husband. 'I still cannot believe in his death. Someone who loved so much, couldn't die. So is he alive?' But it also led to a religious experience. The last part of the book contains extracts from her notebooks from 1965 to 1979. Her last poem was written three days before her death - writing of God and death." --Polish American Journal