True Life

This tender posthumous work by Zagajewski (Two Cities) is exceptionally translated by Cavanagh, who has captured the poet’s subdued, ruminative, and wry tones. Zagajewski (1945–2021) recalls a Polish professor, “tall, thin/ as an exclamation point that has lost its faith,” and a beloved poet who’s recently died, who inspires the adage “Friendship is the prose of love.” Other poems turn their attention to Belzec, one of the SS killing centers in German-occupied Poland: “Only cinders and grief remain, only quiet.” Hospitals, cemeteries, museums, and small towns where “the shadows/ are more real/ than things” are some of the collection’s unusual settings. Overcome by “the shriek of recollection” in one such place (“not a city now but a tropical forest of memories”), the poet borrows a pen from a gas station attendant to jot down notes for a poem. While devastating truths anchor the reader to a foreclosed present (“We can be stopped/ just like that/ stop”), there is evidence of hope in beauty: “Lips parted/ Everything is still possible.” This is a remarkable collection by one of the century’s finest poets. (Feb.)