{"product_id":"to-the-letter-poems-9781953861726","title":"To the Letter: Poems","description":"\u003cb\u003eFrank, acute, and intimate poems of human loss, resilience, and love - detective poem, historical hopscotch, love story \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"A truly lyrical longing for the world to be transformed.\"--Polish Book Institute \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eRóżycki 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. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eTomasz Różycki's \u003ci\u003eTo the Letter \u003c\/i\u003efollows 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. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eHe 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. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWhile 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\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTOMASZ RÓŻYCKI\u003c\/b\u003e 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\u003ci\u003e Colonies\u003c\/i\u003e (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. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eMIRA ROSENTHAL\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of \u003ci\u003eThe Local World\u003c\/i\u003e, 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 \u003ci\u003ePoetry, Ploughshares, Threepenny Review, Guernica, Harvard Review, New England Review, A Public Space\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eOxford American\u003c\/i\u003e. 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.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Archipelago Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50635478270226,"sku":"9781953861726","price":12.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_0b1e69cd-e0f3-4a32-aeb0-570c4400e30c.jpg?v=1732844175","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/to-the-letter-poems-9781953861726","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}