Contemporary East European Poetry: An Anthology

East European poetry has become renowned in this country without becoming well known; a few names stand for a rich and varied tradition. This enlarged edition of a 1983 anthology includes 160 poets writing in 15 languages. The collection shows the historic influences of symbolism, modernism and surrealism on the literature of the region, as well as the weight of history itself. Lines like ``The victor's power and roadside berries / share the same taste of dust'' have an imagistic power and deep irony familiar to readers of Milosz or Herbert. Among the many unfamiliar voices are poets of an earlier generation who figure importantly in their national literatures (for example, the Estonian Marie Under), and young poets who have not yet received attention. A large number of women poets are also represented. The anthology suggests that Eastern European poetry is cosmopolitan, able to respond to East and West, yet preserves at its core distinct and unique qualities. Perhaps the most significant of these is a constant interpenetration of public and private concerns, such that nature is never pure, the ego is never totally self-absorbed and the answers are never final. Although often austere, and almost anonymous in its personal modesty when compared with the American lyric, this poetry is a cord that binds up wounds and holds people together: ``A knife / skins away the fog, / the battering-ram of the mountains. / Across the river / live the dead. / This speech / is their ferry.'' (Apr.)