Master of luminous detail and a well-turned phrase, Krynicki’s poems, even the exceedingly short, rarely fail to move us.

Charles Simic

Ryszard Krynicki lives with six cats, and I feel he must have captured some of the magic of those lithe creatures in his poetry. Krynicki must look into people the way that cats do. He must dream the way that cats see. Though his short poems are my favorites, his longer works are punctuated with lyrical acuity. This collected translation is a gift and I am blessed to have read it.

Atticus Solomon

Krynicki’s work is greatly compact―it resists what Herbert called "gibberish from the tribune black newspaper froth," and aspires to a kind of sacred speech.

Edward Hirsch

A revelation. And a treasure. I thought I 'd known most of the current Polish poets - but here was a glaring omission. He writes with an undercurrent of horror, and yet affirms the sacred, making me believe in the power of poetry to redeem us. As he writes, not without some irony, 'the world still exists.' The translations are superb.

Grace Schulman

Part Issa haiku, part mystic speech, these delicate poems come from a time when men and women died for poetry.

Henri Cole

Ryszard Krynicki has a rare gift of naming things even in his shortest poems; he goes straight to the essence. Among Polish poets and readers he has the reputation of a master, of an archer who never misses.

Adam Zagajewski

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.

Michael Palmer

Clear water knapped to obsidian sharpness—this is the quality of Ryszard Krynicki's poems. Krynicki plays on his almost-impossible instrument a human music unheard elsewhere. Within its notes: personal history; politics; the earth's beings, salts, and resins; friendships and eros; ferocity and acceptance; the pages of newspapers and cities; mortality's subtle explorations. This long-awaited translation brings to English-language readers a poet who retunes the ears.

Jane Hirshfield