Two quatrains I like from the 17-line poem “knowledge” in Tadeusz Różewicz’s New Poems (Archipelago, 259 pp., $16, paperback), translated from the Polish by Bill Johnston:
cogito and dubito
share a house you know
mr cogito above
mr dubito below
having lived a rich life
they switched you know
dubito above
cogito below …
Różewicz is considered one of the finest poets in Poland and won the Nike Prize, his country’s highest literary honor, for Mother Departs. His plays have earned him a reputation one of the major Polish playwrights of the 20th century www.culture.pl/en/culture/artykuly/os_rozewicz_tadeusz.
© 2008 Janice Harayda. All rights reserved.
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