Colonies

"A vital new poet in the Polish language."-- Adam Zagajewski

Tomasz Rozycki's sixth book seems like nothing if not an attempt to grapple with Elizabeth Bishop's question, "Should we have stayed at home and thought of here?" But for Rozycki questions of travel and foreignness are never separate from those of history--personal history, political and national history, the history of things and places and trauma.

"Coffee and Cigarettes"

When I began to write, I didn't know

that poems would transform me, make my skin

translucent, I'd become a weary ghost

who, sleepless, roams the streets as if to ride

a high till coming down, then go to bed

with rabid dawn. But light would find me still

out wandering and dropping in on friends,

flat broke, a louse, a varmint, summoned by

your nakedness or even just your sighing.

And honey, how was I to know what all

these dumb poems would make of me, that you

would summon me to life, and thanks to you

I would become the visible, in bed

beside you, waiting till you fall asleep.

Tomasz Rozycki has published six books of poetry, including The Forgotten Keys, winner of the Koscielski Prize. He has been nominated twice for the Nike Prize, Poland's most important literary award. He lives in his hometown, Opole, with his wife and two children.

Mira Rosenthal has received NEA and Fulbright grants and held fellowships at the MacDowell Colony and the Vermont Studio Center. Her poetry has appeared in journals such as Ploughshares, The American Poetry Review, Slate, and the Notre Dame Review.