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To the Letter

Poems

Author Tomasz Rozycki
Translated by Mira Rosenthal
Ebook
New York Review Books | Archipelago
On sale Jan 09, 2024 | 145 Pages | 9781953861733
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Frank, acute, and intimate poems of human loss, resilience, and love – detective poem, historical hopscotch, love story

“A truly lyrical longing for the world to be transformed.”—Polish Book Institute

Różycki 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.

Tomasz Różycki's To the Letter follows 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.

He 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.

While 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 love
I: Vacuum Theory
 
1. Meadow 
2. White Dwarf
3. Scenario
4. To Give Water to the Thirsty
5. First Poem for Menelik
6. The Garden
7. Phantom
8. The Third Millennium
9. When Do Acacias Bloom?
10. The Place of “I”
11. The Clock
12. Twelve Letters
13. Pointers
14. Heat Wave
15. The Crisis of Polish Readership
16. There Is No Answer
17. Ż/Ś
18. Lavinia
19. Vacuum Theory
20. Mirror
21. Elements
22. The Measure of All Things
23. A Room
24. Dog
25. A Few Hours
26. Rain
27. A Photograph
28. Wild Strawberries
29. Updraft
30. Poor Painters
31. Via Giulia
32. Metamorphoses
33. At the End of the Day
 
            II: The Third Planet
 
34. Chaos Theory
35. Effigy
36. Ghost
37. Message
38. Inheritance
39. A Turn
40. Essential Features
41. Hair by Hair
42. The Eternal War of Opposites
43. Glass Houses
44. This Era
45. Clay
46. Contract
47. Cocoon
48. Settings
49. Euromaidan
50. An Act of Speech
51. Lacki Brzeg, Ukraine
52. In the Cave
53. Revenge Bank
54. Squiggle
55. My Consultants
56. Warsaw Saw War
57. Demolition
58. Two Days’ Time
59. The Third Planet
60. Rhythm, Order and Position
61. Distillery
62. Even Now
63. The Crisis of the Polish State
64. Wind
65. Stone
66. What of Him?
 
            III: Summer of Music
 
67. Summer of Music
68. Sorting
69. Why
70. Scent
71. Formula
72. Summertime
73. Porta Susa
74. The Law of Conservation of Energy
75. The Warmest Place
76. All-Night Shops
77. Any Number
78. The Crisis of Readership
79. Spring Awakening
80. Virus
81. Puzzle
82. Features
83. Piazza del Nettuno
84. An Unexpected Turn of Events
85. The Silk Road
86. Reverse
87. In the Bushes
88. A Glass
89. This Dog’s Life
90. Outside Prudnik
91. Backpack
92. Never
93. Shadow
94. What Makes No Motion?
95. The Cave of the Nymphs
96. The Divine Comedy
97. Second Poem for Menelik
98. The Trail Goes Cold
99. Open
1. Meadow


How did this happen, us going crazy together,
and now we’re lying in this trampled grass
that buzzes and hums? Around us the massive
body of the world turns, this era’s screams and laughter,
 
a jet divides the emptiness in squares,
our winged children circle high above,
and with your hand you shift the clouds. It’s clear
till Sunday, then a front is coming. How did love
 
poison us with verdant venom, how did we end up
going crazy together, lying in dense grass, high
on each other—and what’s become of time, that hangman
with his tools: chains, digits, numbers?
 
A pair of stupid fools: one sound, two letters.
It was you I chose, and oh so selflessly they warned
that you will make me lose it. The perfume
of acacias in bloom is all I have as an excuse.
Copyright © 2024 by Tomasz Ro´z?ycki. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
TOMASZ RÓŻYCKI 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 Colonies (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.

MIRA ROSENTHAL is the author of The Local World, 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 Poetry, Ploughshares, Threepenny Review, Guernica, Harvard Review, New England Review, A Public Space, and Oxford American. 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.
Tomasz Rozycki View titles by Tomasz Rozycki

About

Frank, acute, and intimate poems of human loss, resilience, and love – detective poem, historical hopscotch, love story

“A truly lyrical longing for the world to be transformed.”—Polish Book Institute

Różycki 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.

Tomasz Różycki's To the Letter follows 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.

He 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.

While 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 love

Table of Contents

I: Vacuum Theory
 
1. Meadow 
2. White Dwarf
3. Scenario
4. To Give Water to the Thirsty
5. First Poem for Menelik
6. The Garden
7. Phantom
8. The Third Millennium
9. When Do Acacias Bloom?
10. The Place of “I”
11. The Clock
12. Twelve Letters
13. Pointers
14. Heat Wave
15. The Crisis of Polish Readership
16. There Is No Answer
17. Ż/Ś
18. Lavinia
19. Vacuum Theory
20. Mirror
21. Elements
22. The Measure of All Things
23. A Room
24. Dog
25. A Few Hours
26. Rain
27. A Photograph
28. Wild Strawberries
29. Updraft
30. Poor Painters
31. Via Giulia
32. Metamorphoses
33. At the End of the Day
 
            II: The Third Planet
 
34. Chaos Theory
35. Effigy
36. Ghost
37. Message
38. Inheritance
39. A Turn
40. Essential Features
41. Hair by Hair
42. The Eternal War of Opposites
43. Glass Houses
44. This Era
45. Clay
46. Contract
47. Cocoon
48. Settings
49. Euromaidan
50. An Act of Speech
51. Lacki Brzeg, Ukraine
52. In the Cave
53. Revenge Bank
54. Squiggle
55. My Consultants
56. Warsaw Saw War
57. Demolition
58. Two Days’ Time
59. The Third Planet
60. Rhythm, Order and Position
61. Distillery
62. Even Now
63. The Crisis of the Polish State
64. Wind
65. Stone
66. What of Him?
 
            III: Summer of Music
 
67. Summer of Music
68. Sorting
69. Why
70. Scent
71. Formula
72. Summertime
73. Porta Susa
74. The Law of Conservation of Energy
75. The Warmest Place
76. All-Night Shops
77. Any Number
78. The Crisis of Readership
79. Spring Awakening
80. Virus
81. Puzzle
82. Features
83. Piazza del Nettuno
84. An Unexpected Turn of Events
85. The Silk Road
86. Reverse
87. In the Bushes
88. A Glass
89. This Dog’s Life
90. Outside Prudnik
91. Backpack
92. Never
93. Shadow
94. What Makes No Motion?
95. The Cave of the Nymphs
96. The Divine Comedy
97. Second Poem for Menelik
98. The Trail Goes Cold
99. Open

Excerpt

1. Meadow


How did this happen, us going crazy together,
and now we’re lying in this trampled grass
that buzzes and hums? Around us the massive
body of the world turns, this era’s screams and laughter,
 
a jet divides the emptiness in squares,
our winged children circle high above,
and with your hand you shift the clouds. It’s clear
till Sunday, then a front is coming. How did love
 
poison us with verdant venom, how did we end up
going crazy together, lying in dense grass, high
on each other—and what’s become of time, that hangman
with his tools: chains, digits, numbers?
 
A pair of stupid fools: one sound, two letters.
It was you I chose, and oh so selflessly they warned
that you will make me lose it. The perfume
of acacias in bloom is all I have as an excuse.
Copyright © 2024 by Tomasz Ro´z?ycki. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Author

TOMASZ RÓŻYCKI 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 Colonies (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.

MIRA ROSENTHAL is the author of The Local World, 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 Poetry, Ploughshares, Threepenny Review, Guernica, Harvard Review, New England Review, A Public Space, and Oxford American. 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.
Tomasz Rozycki View titles by Tomasz Rozycki

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