I love to swim in the sea, which keeps
talking to itself
in the monotone of a vagabond
who no longer recalls
exactly how long he's been on the road.
Swimming is like prayer:
palms join and part,
join and part,
almost without end.
--from On Swimming
Without Enddraws from each of Adam Zagajewski's English-language collections, both in and out of print--Tremor, Canvas,andMysticism for Beginners--and features new work that is among his most refreshing and rewarding. These poems, lucidly translated, share the vocation that allows us, in Zagajewski's words, to experience astonishment and to stop still in that astonishment for a long moment or two.
[Zagajewski's poems] transport us into a realm that is majestic, boundless and unknown. Edward Hirsch, The Washington Post Book World
Poems [that] celebrate those rare moments when we catch a glimpse of a world from which all labels have been unpeeled. Charles Simic, The New York Review of Books
Adam Zagajewskiwas born in Lvov, Poland, in 1945. He lives in Krak?w and spends part of the year in Houston, where he teaches at the University of Houston.