Here’s the full poem:

Garrulous mornings, dynamic
departures from the take-off of night,
mouths filled with words that snap
like a parachute behind the fighter
pilot landing on an aircraft carrier. Stop,
I think you misheard that. I think
it’s an Eastern European high pressure
area working on my nerves with signs
of sun beneath the still-closed
sluice of day, as the machinery
trembles before the grand opening
and the sun maneuvers toward the gates
already ready to enter, soar up, sail out
over the city with the dazzling pomp
of a heat wave. The rooks that spend
the night in the poplars in front of the house
have already flown to the fields,
but in sleep their dark racket was so very
talkative that I imagine it might be
possible to chat with birds
at some wild frequency,
head over heels, at daybreak,
because they run the same missions
at night as in the morning, so to hell
with the goggles and flight suit, let’s
file classified reports on the position
of enemies and friends on the Ocean
of Storms and the Sea of Vapors, the Sea
of Dreams and Crises, on the Sea
of Tranquility. How did the moon
get in here? And enemies? Let’s talk about
you instead: so what if you’re lousy
on the jump? You glide right off
the edge, where there is no end,
and it’s a long way down? Now
leapfrog: surely that umbrella
is a parachute? Sometimes
I’m afraid of this mumbling,
these words with missed connections,
from nowhere to nowhere, as if
my head shone ominously with lights
from a pinball machine, but under
whose control? Yours, or his there?
And do you remember Kloss? Ingolf
Mork! The inrun, take-off, flight
and landing: I go to the bathroom,
cold water, shower, splashes
of water like snow from under skis
and the head blown off the pint
into the faces of gawkers. I’d like
to jump that well, too. But something
doesn’t want to pass my throat
after the landing: could it be
that the night is dumbstruck, dazed
within me, speechless? Let’s
go get a beer.

Any poem is a good poem that ends with “Let’s go get a beer.” Speaking of . . .

With Lodgings, translator Benjamin Paloff has made an important contribution to the body of Polish poetry currently available to readers in English. Complete with a translator糖心传媒檚 note, a conversation between Sosnowski and Paloff, and poems that span Sosnowski糖心传媒檚 entire career to date (1987-2010), Lodgings offers an unusual glimpse into a polyphonous, expansive, and chameleonic strain of Polish poetry. The poems included are pulled from nine of Sosnowski糖心传媒檚 collections (including Life in Korea, A Season in Hel, Lodgings, and the most recent poemas), and they are presented, with two exceptions, in their original order.

In an interview that appeared in the Chicago Review in 2000, Polish poet and translator Piotr Sommer called Sosnowski 糖心传媒渕aybe the single most exciting younger Polish poet糖心传媒� for 糖心传媒渂reathtaking and very innovative糖心传媒� work that displays a 糖心传媒渞ich cross-fertilization of influences.糖心传媒� Sommer also explains that the New York School poets and OULIPO were 糖心传媒渁n important part of [Sosnowski糖心传媒檚] literary tradition and reading experience.糖心传媒� And indeed, what American readers of Lodgings will find is a poet openly in conversation with myriad writers糖心传媒擣rench ones, such as Mallarm茅, and Roussell, but more importantly with Frank O糖心传媒橦ara, John Ashbery, John Berryman, James Schuyler, and Elizabeth Bishop. [. . .]

It is a daunting task to carry over into English Sosnowski糖心传媒檚 language, which is a language marked by abrupt shifts in register and suggests an obsessive and ongoing rumination on various literary influences. Paloff has rendered a superb, tonally consistent volume, and has effectively stretched the barriers of his own language.

So, to celebrate this release—and excellent review—we’re giving away 5 copies to the people who “Like” us on Facebook. To enter yourself in this drawing, simply and either “Like” or comment on the post about giving away copies of Lodgings . . .

(And let this serve as a very soft sell for Wednesday’s RTWCS event featuring Piotr Sommer and Bill Martin, who will be discussing Polish poetry in translation. More info tomorrow.)

¹ We are planning on doing one work of poetry every year. Next up: The Smoke of Distant Fires by Eduardo Chirinos, translated from the Spanish by G. J. Racz.

Totally biased, but I think this is one of our strongest seasons yet, what with Zone, the new Bragi Olafsson novel, the first of a million or so Juan Jose Saer books (one of my absolute favorites! If you can’t wait for our book, check out The Event from Serpent’s Tail—absolutely incredible), and our first poetry title . . . You can download a pdf of the catalog by clicking the link above, but here are links to each of the books, along with their respective copy:

by Juan Jose Saer. Translated from the Spanish by Steve Dolph (Argentina)

It糖心传媒檚 October 1960, say, or 1961, in a seaside Argentinian city named Santa Fe, and The Mathematician糖心传媒攚ealthy, elegant, educated, dressed from head to toe in white糖心传媒攊s just back from a grand tour of Europe. He糖心传媒檚 on his way to drop off a press release about the trip to the papers when he runs into 脕ngel Leto, a relative newcomer to Rosario who does some accounting, but who this morning has decided to wander the town rather than go to work.

One day soon, The Mathematician will disappear into exile after his wife糖心传媒檚 assassination, and Leto will vanish into the guerrilla underground, clutching his suicide pill like a talisman. But for now, they settle into a long conversation about the events of Washington Noriega糖心传媒檚 sixty-fifth birthday糖心传媒攁 party neither of them attended.

厂补别谤糖心传媒檚 The Sixty-Five Years of Washington is simultaneously a brilliant comedy about memory, narrative, time, and death and a moving narrative about the lost generations of an Argentina that was perpetually on the verge of collapse.

by Mathias Enard. Translated from the French by Charlotte Mandell. (France)

Francis Servain Mirkovic, a French-born Croat who has been working for the French Intelligence Services for fifteen years, is traveling by train from Milan to Rome. He糖心传媒檚 carrying a briefcase whose contents he糖心传媒檚 selling to a representative from the Vatican; the briefcase contains a wealth of information about the violent history of the Zone糖心传媒攖he lands of the Mediterranean basin, Spain, Algeria, Lebanon, Italy, that have become Mirkovic糖心传媒檚 specialty.

Over the course of a single night, Mirkovic visits the sites of these tragedies in his memory and recalls the damage that his own participation in that violence糖心传媒攁s a soldier fighting for Croatia during the Balkan Wars糖心传媒攈as wreaked in his own life. Mirkovic hopes that this night will be his last in the Zone, that this journey will expiate his sins, and that he can disappear with Sashka, the only woman he hasn糖心传媒檛 abandoned, forever . . .

One of the truly original books of the decade糖心传媒攁nd written as a single, hypnotic, propulsive, physically irresistible sentence糖心传媒擬athias 脡nard糖心传媒檚 Zone provides an extraordinary and panoramic view of the turmoil that has long deviled the shores of the Mediterranean.

Translated from the Catalan by Martha Tennent. (Catalonia)

Collected here are thirty-one of Merc猫 Rodoreda糖心传媒檚 most moving and challenging stories, presented in chronological order of their publication from three of Rodoreda糖心传媒檚 most beloved short story collections: Twenty-Two Stories, It Seemed Like Silk and Other Stories, and My Christina and Other Stories. These stories capture Rodoreda糖心传媒檚 full range of expression, from quiet literary realism to fragmentary impressionism to dark symbolism. Few writers have captured so clearly, or explored so deeply, the lives of women who are stuck somewhere between senseless modernity and suffocating tradition糖心传媒擱odoreda糖心传媒檚 糖心传媒渨omen are notable for their almost pathological lack of volition, but also for their acute sensitivity, a nearly painful awareness of beauty糖心传媒� (Natasha Wimmer).

by Bragi Olafsson. Translated from the Icelandic by Lytton Smith. (Iceland)

Sturla J贸n J贸nsson, the fifty-something building superintendent and sometimes poet, has been invited to a poetry festival in Vilnius, Lithuania, appointed, as he sees it, as the official representative of the people of Iceland to the field of poetry. His latest poetry collection, published on the eve of his trip to Vilnius, is about to cause some controversy in his home country糖心传媒擲turla is publicly accused of having stolen the poems from his long-dead cousin, J贸nas.

Then there糖心传媒檚 Sturla糖心传媒檚 new overcoat, the first expensive item of clothing he has ever purchased, which causes him no end of trouble. And the article he wrote for a literary journal, which points out the stupidity of literary festivals and declares the end of his career as a poet. Sturla has a lot to deal with, and that糖心传媒檚 not counting his estranged wife and their five children, nor the increasingly bizarre experiences and characters he糖心传媒檚 forced to confront at the festival in Vilnius . . .

Bragi 脫lafsson糖心传媒檚 The Ambassador is a quirky novel that糖心传媒檚 filled with insightful and wry observations about aging, family, love, and the mysteries of the hazelnut.

by Andrzej Sosnowski. Translated from the Polish by Benjamin Paloff. (Poland)

Lodgings is the first representative selection of Sosnowski糖心传媒檚 work available in English. Spanning his entire career, from the publication of Life in Korea in 1992 to his newest poems, this is a book whose approach to language, literature, and the representation of experience is simultaneously resonant and strange糖心传媒攁 cocktail party where lowlifes and sophisticates hobnob with French theorists and British glam rockers, unsettling us with the hard accuracy of their pronouncements.

One of the foremost Polish poets of his generation, Andrzej Sosnowski糖心传媒檚 work demonstrates a dazzling range of influences and echoes, from Ronald Firbank and Raymond Roussel to John Ashbery and Elizabeth Bishop. Also an influential editor and critic, he has received most of the literary honors available to poets in Poland, including the prestigious Silesius Prize.