This selection brings together the most beautiful and powerful of Czeslaw Milosz´s poems, spanning his writing life.
In verses such as ´Café´ he considers the upheaval, revolutions and two world wars that he had witnessed, while ´My Faithful Mother Tongue´ reflects the loyalty he felt to his native Polish language. He also remembers his schooldays in ´The World´, and in ´Bypassing Rue Descartes´ recalls the Paris streets of his student years, displaying both tenderness and tough-minded fury towards those who shaped his experiences. Writing not about abstract emotions, but about the horrors and beauty that he directly observed, Milosz opens our eyes to the joy-bringing potential of the poetry to which he gave his life.