Slight Exaggeration: An Essay

A new essay collection by the noted Polish poet For Adam Zagajewskiùone of PolandÆs great poetsùthe project of writing, whether it be poetry or prose, is an occasion to advance what David Wojahn has characterized as his ôrestless and quizzical quest for self-knowledge.ö Slight Exaggeration is an autobiographical portrait of the poet, arranged not chronologically but with that same luminous quality that distinguishes ZagajewskiÆs spellbinding poetryùan 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 reveriesùfrom the Second World War and the occupation of Poland that left his family dispossessed to Joseph BrodskyÆs funeral on the Venetian island of San Micheleùinterspersed with intellectual interrogations of the writers and poets (D. H. Lawrence, Giorgos Seferis, Zbigniew Herbert, Paul Val?ry), 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 ZagajewskiÆs poetry in its delicate negotiation between the earthbound and the ethereal, ôbetween brief explosions of meaning and patient wandering through the plains of ordinary days.ö With an enduring inclination to marvel, Zagajewski restores the world to usùnecessarily incomplete and utterly astonishing.

• | Author: Adam Zagajewski
• | Publisher: Farrar, Straus And Giroux
• | Publication Date: Apr 03, 2018
• | Number of Pages: 284 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Paperback/Literary Collections
• | ISBN-10: 0374537518
• | ISBN-13: 9780374537517