Slight Exaggeration: An Essay
By Adam Zagajewski and Clare Cavanagh
3.5/5
()
About this ebook
A new essay collection by the noted Polish poet
For Adam Zagajewski—one of Poland’s great poets—the project of writing, whether it be poetry or prose, is an occasion to advance what David Wojahn has characterized as his “restless and quizzical quest for self-knowledge.” Slight Exaggeration is an autobiographical portrait of the poet, arranged not chronologically but with that same luminous quality that distinguishes Zagajewski’s spellbinding poetry—an affinity for the invisible.
In a mosaic-like blend of criticism, reflections, European history, and aphoristic musings, Zagajewski tells the stories of his life in glimpses and reveries—from the Second World War and the occupation of Poland that left his family dispossessed to Joseph Brodsky’s funeral on the Venetian island of San Michele—interspersed with intellectual interrogations of the writers and poets (D. H. Lawrence, Giorgos Seferis, Zbigniew Herbert, Paul Valéry), composers and painters (Brahms, Rembrandt), and modern heroes (Helmuth James Graf von Moltke) who have influenced his work.
A wry and philosophical defense of mystery, Slight Exaggeration recalls Zagajewski’s poetry in its delicate negotiation between the earthbound and the ethereal, “between brief explosions of meaning and patient wandering through the plains of ordinary days.” With an enduring inclination to marvel, Zagajewski restores the world to us—necessarily incomplete and utterly astonishing.
Adam Zagajewski
Adam Zagajewski (1945–2021) was born in Lvov, Poland. His books include Tremor; Canvas; Mysticism for Beginners; Without End; Eternal Enemies; Unseen Hand; Asymmetry; Solidarity, Solitude; Two Cities; Another Beauty; A Defense of Ardor; and Slight Exaggeration—all published by FSG. He lived in Chicago and Kraków.
Read more from Adam Zagajewski
The Poetry of Rilke Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Asymmetry: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unseen Hand: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Defense of Ardor: Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Eternal Enemies: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to Slight Exaggeration
Related ebooks
The Life of Images: Selected Prose Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5What Light Can Do: Essays on Art, Imagination, and the Natural World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The City, Our City: Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Lunatic: Poems Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Guard The Mysteries Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTrances of the Blast Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5At the End of Sleep Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLecture Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsProse Poetry and the City Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUnending Blues: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Study Guide for Adam Zagajewski's "Try to Praise the Mutilated World" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIn Praise of Poetry Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEnough to Say It's Far: Selected Poems of Pak Chaesam Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCome Closer and Listen: New Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Most of It Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Night Unto Night: Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Difference Is Spreading: Fifty Contemporary Poets on Fifty Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIn the Middle of Nowhere Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Lesser Fields Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCircling the Canon, Volume II: The Selected Book Reviews of Marjorie Perloff,1995-2017 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Chameleon House Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsIn the Blue Pharmacy: Essays on Poetry and Other Transformations Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sonnets to Orpheus Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5House Held Together by Winds Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Resistance to Poetry Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5No Object Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Anti-Grief Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5For As Far as the Eye Can See Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Communicating Vessels Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Time Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
General Fiction For You
The King James Version of the Bible Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Alchemist Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Alchemist: A Graphic Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Unhoneymooners Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Life of Pi: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fellowship Of The Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Outsider: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Meditations: Complete and Unabridged Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Covenant of Water (Oprah's Book Club) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Priory of the Orange Tree Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beyond Good and Evil Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The City of Dreaming Books Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5You: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Other Black Girl: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nettle & Bone Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Iliad of Homer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beartown: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dante's Divine Comedy: Inferno Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dry: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Canterbury Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Silmarillion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cloud Cuckoo Land: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shantaram: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Cabin at the End of the World: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ulysses: With linked Table of Contents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Slight Exaggeration
2 ratings0 reviews