Ryzard Krynicki, Magnetic Point (2017)

At last, a very welcome and representative selection from this major poet of the fabled, fiercely resistant, Polish 'Generation of 68,' in ever scrupulous and sensitive translations by Clare Cavanagh. We witness the work as it evolves from powerfully defamiliarizing early poems to the movingly spare and lyrical economy of the later writings. All along, however, Krynicki holds us the fun-house mirror to the citizens and rules of planet Phantasmagoria. His hand is steady.