Widely held to be the most influential Polish poet of a generation that includes Czeslaw Milosz and Wislawa Szymborska, Tadeusz Róźewicz gives voice in the sharpest, most disturbing way to the crisis of values that has plagued our civilization. Joanna Trzeciak's new translation displays Róźewicz's supernatural simplicity, his stark diction and sudden turns.

From "regression into the primordial soup"

finally I too came into the world

in the year 1921 and suddenly . . .

atchoo! time passes I am old and forgot where I put my glasses

I forgot there was

history Caesar Hitler Mata Hari

Stalin capitalism communism

Einstein Picasso Al Capone

Alka Seltzer Al Qaeda