Widely held to be the most influential Polish poet of a generation that includes Czeslaw Milosz and Wislawa Szymborska, Tadeusz Ro ewicz gives voice in the sharpest, most disturbing way to the crisis of values that has plagued our civilization. Joanna Trzeciak's new translation displays Ro ewicz''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"