{"product_id":"to-the-letter-isbn-9781953861726","title":"To the Letter","description":"\u003cb\u003eFrank, acute, and intimate poems of human loss, resilience, and love – detective poem, historical hopscotch, love story \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A truly lyrical longing for the world to be transformed.”—Polish Book Institute\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRóżycki collects moments of illumination – a cat dashing out of a window  and \"feral sun\" streaking in, a body planting itself in the ground like  rhubarb and flowering. He collects and collects, opens a crack, and  clutches a shrapnel of epiphany.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTomasz Różycki's \u003ci\u003eTo the Letter \u003c\/i\u003efollows Lieutenant Anielewicz on the hunt for any clues that might lead 21st century human beings out of a sense of despair. With authoritarianism rising across Eastern Europe, the Lieutenant longs for a secret hero. At first, he suspects some hidden mechanism afoot: fruit tutors him in the ways of color, he drifts out to sea to study the grammar of tides, or he gazes at the sun as it thrums away like a timepiece. In one poem, he admits \"this is the story of my confusion,\" and in the next the Lieutenant is back on the trail. \"This lunacy needs a full investigation,\" he jibes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe wants to get to the bottom of it all, but he's often bewitched by letters and the trickery of language. Diacritics on Polish words form a \"flock of sooty flecks, clinging to letters\" and Lieutenant Anielewicz studies the tails, accents, and strokes that twist this script.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhile the Lieutenant can't write a coherent code to solve life's mysteries or to fill the absence of a country rent by war, his search for patterns throughout art, philosophy, and literature lead not to despair but to an affirmation of the importance of human loveI: Vacuum Theory\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e 1. Meadow  \u003cbr\u003e 2. White Dwarf\u003cbr\u003e 3. Scenario \u003cbr\u003e 4. To Give Water to the Thirsty\u003cbr\u003e 5. First Poem for Menelik\u003cbr\u003e 6. The Garden \u003cbr\u003e 7. Phantom \u003cbr\u003e 8. The Third Millennium\u003cbr\u003e 9. When Do Acacias Bloom?\u003cbr\u003e 10. The Place of “I” \u003cbr\u003e 11. The Clock\u003cbr\u003e 12. Twelve Letters\u003cbr\u003e 13. Pointers\u003cbr\u003e 14. Heat Wave\u003cbr\u003e 15. The Crisis of Polish Readership\u003cbr\u003e 16. There Is No Answer\u003cbr\u003e 17. Ż\/Ś \u003cbr\u003e 18. Lavinia\u003cbr\u003e 19. Vacuum Theory\u003cbr\u003e 20. Mirror\u003cbr\u003e 21. Elements\u003cbr\u003e 22. The Measure of All Things\u003cbr\u003e 23. A Room\u003cbr\u003e 24. Dog\u003cbr\u003e 25. A Few Hours\u003cbr\u003e 26. Rain\u003cbr\u003e 27. A Photograph\u003cbr\u003e 28. Wild Strawberries\u003cbr\u003e 29. Updraft\u003cbr\u003e 30. Poor Painters\u003cbr\u003e 31. Via Giulia\u003cbr\u003e 32. Metamorphoses\u003cbr\u003e 33. At the End of the Day\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e             II: The Third Planet\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e 34. Chaos Theory\u003cbr\u003e 35. Effigy\u003cbr\u003e 36. Ghost\u003cbr\u003e 37. Message\u003cbr\u003e 38. Inheritance\u003cbr\u003e 39. A Turn\u003cbr\u003e 40. Essential Features\u003cbr\u003e 41. Hair by Hair\u003cbr\u003e 42. The Eternal War of Opposites\u003cbr\u003e 43. Glass Houses\u003cbr\u003e 44. This Era\u003cbr\u003e 45. Clay\u003cbr\u003e 46. Contract\u003cbr\u003e 47. Cocoon\u003cbr\u003e 48. Settings\u003cbr\u003e 49. Euromaidan\u003cbr\u003e 50. An Act of Speech\u003cbr\u003e 51. Lacki Brzeg, Ukraine\u003cbr\u003e 52. In the Cave\u003cbr\u003e 53. Revenge Bank\u003cbr\u003e 54. Squiggle\u003cbr\u003e 55. My Consultants\u003cbr\u003e 56. Warsaw Saw War\u003cbr\u003e 57. Demolition\u003cbr\u003e 58. Two Days’ Time\u003cbr\u003e 59. The Third Planet \u003cbr\u003e 60. Rhythm, Order and Position\u003cbr\u003e 61. Distillery\u003cbr\u003e 62. Even Now\u003cbr\u003e 63. The Crisis of the Polish State\u003cbr\u003e 64. Wind\u003cbr\u003e 65. Stone\u003cbr\u003e 66. What of Him?\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e             III: Summer of Music\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e 67. Summer of Music\u003cbr\u003e 68. Sorting \u003cbr\u003e 69. Why\u003cbr\u003e 70. Scent\u003cbr\u003e 71. Formula\u003cbr\u003e 72. Summertime\u003cbr\u003e 73. Porta Susa\u003cbr\u003e 74. The Law of Conservation of Energy\u003cbr\u003e 75. The Warmest Place \u003cbr\u003e 76. All-Night Shops\u003cbr\u003e 77. Any Number\u003cbr\u003e 78. The Crisis of Readership\u003cbr\u003e 79. Spring Awakening\u003cbr\u003e 80. Virus\u003cbr\u003e 81. Puzzle\u003cbr\u003e 82. Features\u003cbr\u003e 83. Piazza del Nettuno\u003cbr\u003e 84. An Unexpected Turn of Events\u003cbr\u003e 85. The Silk Road\u003cbr\u003e 86. Reverse\u003cbr\u003e 87. In the Bushes\u003cbr\u003e 88. A Glass\u003cbr\u003e 89. This Dog’s Life \u003cbr\u003e 90. Outside Prudnik \u003cbr\u003e 91. Backpack\u003cbr\u003e 92. Never\u003cbr\u003e 93. Shadow\u003cbr\u003e 94. What Makes No Motion?\u003cbr\u003e 95. The Cave of the Nymphs\u003cbr\u003e 96. The Divine Comedy\u003cbr\u003e 97. Second Poem for Menelik \u003cbr\u003e 98. The Trail Goes Cold\u003cbr\u003e 99. Open\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\"In this philosophical collection that explores doubt—regarding language, God, and the prospect of repeating history—many poems address an unreachable “you” who could be a lover, a deity, or a ghost of someone long dead. Rosenthal’s translation draws out these poems’ shades of melancholy and whimsy, along with the slant and irregular rhymes that contribute to their uncanny humor. Różycki’s verse teems with sensuous, imaginatively rendered details.\" — \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Across the ninety-nine poems of Polish poet Tomasz Różycki’s \u003ci\u003eTo The Letter\u003c\/i\u003e, presides a calling out to absence, often in the form of this “you” whether in loss—cultural, global, personal—or self-examination . . . This collection has, perhaps, added resonance landing in 2023: “You—out there where the future pushes through like a worm from an apple, only the hole is in heaven and so enormous we’ll all fall in, along with tenements, convenience stores, our entire state—let’s say it’s nowhere—” A notable contribution to Polish poetry available in English–and a vital living voice, no less.” \u003cb\u003e— Rebecca Morgan Frank, \u003ci\u003eLitHub\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“We live in feral times,” the poet says, asking us “what shape this era will carve \/ in flesh.” In Mira Rosenthal’s exacting, beautiful translations, Tomasz Różycki's work gives us a moment of honest assessment, answering hard questions without patronizing, with lyric precision. One of Poland’s best living poets, he is writing at the height of his powers. Which, for me, means: there is mystery in his work, that feels trustworthy—“we will dig ourselves out of our private muck \/of subtext, shed the weight,” he says, “and fly off, empty, for the nearest lightbulb.” It is amongst the quotidian that he seeks to be saved, his is a vision in which despite all the tragedy of this new century, the thrush that sings “at two a.m. outside \/our window in the parking lot has saved \/ the day, the month.” If that is to be our new metaphysics, count me in. \u003cb\u003e— Ilya Kaminsky, author of \u003ci\u003eDeaf Republic\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eDancing in Odessa\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The poems are intimate and wry, philosophically complex, and charged with metaphors for absence and language itself.\" \u003cb\u003e— Dana Isokawa, \u003ci\u003ePoets \u0026amp; Writers Magazine\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e“Irony is the spice of poetry . . . Różycki’s irony can be caustic (“some people are so poor the only thing they have\/is money, money”), or it can be sublimely political . . . Rosenthal deserves special praise for rendering Różycki’s wordplay, musical density, and metonymic dazzle into powerful English . . . Różycki’s poem as “rolled-up paper\/gun” is a handmade, fragile, but potent technology for survival.”\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e \u003cb\u003e— \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003eAnge Mlinko\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Review of Books\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"The past will never leave us. It will haunt our photographs; it will speak between the words that we read and write. Różycki’s collection, brought to us through Rosenthal’s beautiful translation, helps us remember that it is art that will lead us through to a bearable future, and art that will always speak the unspeakable.”\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e— Iris Dunkle, \u003ci\u003eWords Without Borders\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\"Mysterious events in Agualusa’s stories reveal a kinship with García Márquez, whereas events of mysterious ambiguity fall into Bolaño’s camp . . . Daniel Hahn’s translation successfully conveys that straight-faced equanimity needed for staring absurdities in the eyes.”\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e— Tom Bowden, \u003ci\u003eThe Book Beat\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\"[Mira Rosenthal’s] English iterations fully relay the poems’ accessibility, music, and humor—as well as the ways they integrate into surprising valences with creativity, love, and interbeing . . .\u003ci\u003eTo the Letter reminds\u003c\/i\u003e us that fragmentation offers an opportunity to listen and create, that the blank spaces between words are places in which new life may yet be lived. It reminds us that the reader is doubly alive, watching and being watched, even from the shadows.” \u003cb\u003e— Michael Collins, Asymptote Journal\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\"For Różycki, the void is . . . about loss—whether of the place he was forced to flee, or of the life he missed out on as a consequence . . . Where poetry usually stops at anguish, Różycki goes the whole length to realize the fullness of a proxy conjured by loss, the stranger who lives on in the mind.\" \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e— Janani Ambikapathy, \u003ci\u003eHarriet Books\u003c\/i\u003e (the blog of the Poetry Foundation)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eTOMASZ RÓŻYCKI\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of eleven volumes of poetry and prose. Over the last decade he has garnered almost every prize Poland has to offer as well as widespread critical acclaim, with work translated into numerous languages and frequent appearances at international festivals. In the U.S., he has been featured at the Unterberg Poetry Center, the Princeton Poetry Festival, and the Brooklyn Book Festival. His volume\u003ci\u003e Colonies\u003c\/i\u003e (translated by Mira Rosenthal) won the Northern California Book Award and was a finalist for numerous other prizes, including the International Griffin Poetry Prize and the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eMIRA ROSENTHAL\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of \u003ci\u003eThe Local World\u003c\/i\u003e, which won the Wick Poetry Prize. She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and Stanford University’s Stegner Fellowship, and her work appears regularly in such journals as \u003ci\u003ePoetry, Ploughshares, Threepenny Review, Guernica, Harvard Review, New England Review, A Public Space\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eOxford American\u003c\/i\u003e. Her honors include a PEN\/Heim Translation Fund Award, a Fulbright Fellowship, a grant from the American Council of Learned Societies, and residencies at Hedgebrook and MacDowell. She teaches creative writing at Cal Poly and lives on the central coast of California.\u003cb\u003e1. Meadow\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e How did this happen, us going crazy together,\u003cbr\u003e and now we’re lying in this trampled grass\u003cbr\u003e that buzzes and hums? Around us the massive\u003cbr\u003e body of the world turns, this era’s screams and laughter,\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e a jet divides the emptiness in squares,\u003cbr\u003e our winged children circle high above,\u003cbr\u003e and with your hand you shift the clouds. It’s clear\u003cbr\u003e till Sunday, then a front is coming. How did love\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e poison us with verdant venom, how did we end up\u003cbr\u003e going crazy together, lying in dense grass, high\u003cbr\u003e on each other—and what’s become of time, that hangman\u003cbr\u003e with his tools: chains, digits, numbers?\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e A pair of stupid fools: one sound, two letters.\u003cbr\u003e It was you I chose, and oh so selflessly they warned\u003cbr\u003e that you will make me lose it. The perfume\u003cbr\u003e of acacias in bloom is all I have as an excuse.","brand":"Archipelago","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46300258631909,"sku":"NP9781953861726","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781953861726.jpg?v=1767742727","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/to-the-letter-isbn-9781953861726","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}