Facing the River - by Czeslaw Milosz (Paperback)

About the Book

A poet of immense moral authority, Milosz writes with the amazing clarity that issues from a precise vision. In these later poems, the poems of older age, he takes a long look back at the catastrophic upheavals of the 20th century; yet despite the soberness of his themes, he writes with the lightness of touch found only in the great masters.

Book Synopsis

Czeslaw Milosz did not believe he would ever return to the river valley in which he grew up. But in the spring of 1989, exactly fifty years after he left, the new government of independent Lithuania welcomed him back to that magical region of his childhood. Many of the poems in Facing the River record his experiences there, where the river of the Issa Valley symbolizes the river of time as well as the river of mythology, over which one cannot step twice. This is the river Milosz faces while exploring ancient themes. He reflects upon the nature of imagination, human experience, good and evil--and celebrates the wonders of life on earth.

In these later poems, the poems of older age, this Nobel laureate takes a long look back at the catastrophic upheavals of the twentieth century; yet despite the soberness of his themes, he writes with the lightness of touch found only in the great masters.

Review Quotes

"I have no hesitation whatsoever in stating that Czeslaw Milosz is one of the greatest poets of our time, perhaps the greatest."-- Joseph Brodsky"The work of Milosz reminds us of how much power poetry gains from bearing within itself an unforced, natural, and longranging memory of past customs; a sense of the strata of ancient and modern history; a wide visual experience; and a knowledge of many languages and literatures."-- Helen Vendler