Polish poet and Nobel laureate Czeslaw Milosz

Polish poet and Nobel laureate Czeslaw Milosz, known for his intellectual and emotional works about some of the worst cruelties of the 20th century, died today at the age of 93. Milosz's best-known works include "The Captive Mind," a study of the plight of intellectuals under communist dictatorship, which brought him international fame in the early 1950s. In 1960, Milosz left France for California, where he spent more than 20 years as Professor of Slavic Languages and Literature at UC-Berkeley. English-speaking audiences got access to his poetry only in 1973, when some of his work was translated in "Selected Poems." In 1980, he was awarded the Nobel prize in literature, an honor that coincided with the emergence of the Solidarity worker protest movement that shook communist rule in Poland. At the age of 90, Milosz still stayed up nights writing poems:

"It's not possible to be sated with the world. I'm still insatiable," he said. "At my age, I'm still looking for a form, for a language to express the world."

But maybe you don't know about Milosz or his work. Despite the breadth of his work, and his influence, he remains an obscure literary gem, even on the UC-Berkeley campus. Well, that should not be the case. I learned about Milosz in law school, of all places, in this amazing Human Rights Seminar led by my classmate Daniela Yanai. For one class meeting, we read Thomas Merton on non-violence. As I learned more about Merton, I discovered his friendship and letters to Milosz, which had been published as a collection: Striving Towards Being: The Letters of Thomas Merton and Czeslaw Milosz. One review describes this collection of letters like this:

Throughout the collection, the reader is made privy to the thoughts of both Merton and Milosz on topics ranging from contemporary culture and the history of the Church to their most personal literary and spiritual concerns. What emerges is a portrait of two men attempting to be as open and honest as possible as they communicate about what it means to be a Christian, a writer, and, indeed, a human being in the twentieth century.

If you aren't already familiar with Milosz, you can find some of his poems on-line, here, and a short biography, here, as well as the NPR "All Things Considered" broadcast after his death, here. Milosz's poetry was praised for its enormous range of subject matter and technique, and its mix of sensuousness and references to culture, religion, and philosophy ~~ this is clear in two of my favorites:

LOVE . . . Love means to learn to look at yourself The way one looks at distant things For you are only one thing among many. And whoever sees that way heals his heart, Without knowing it, from various ills — A bird and a tree say to him: Friend. Then he wants to use himself and things So that they stand in the glow of ripeness. It doesn’t matter whether he knows what he serves: Who serves best doesn’t always understand.

DEDICATION . . . You whom I could not save Listen to me. Try to understand this simple speech as I would be ashamed of another. I swear, there is in me no wizardry of words. I speak to you with silence like a cloud or a tree. What strengthened me, for you was lethal. You mixed up farewell to an epoch with the beginning of a new one, Inspiration of hatred with lyrical beauty, Blind force with accomplished shape. Here is the valley of shallow Polish rivers. And an immense bridge Going into white fog. Here is a broken city, And the wind throws the screams of gulls on your grave When I am talking with you. What is poetry which does not save Nations or people? A connivance with official lies, A song of drunkards whose throats will be cut in a moment, Readings for sophomore girls. That I wanted good poetry without knowing it, That I discovered, late, its salutary aim, In this and only this I find salvation. They used to pour millet on graves or poppy seeds To feed the dead who would come disguised as birds. I put this book here for you, who once lived So that you should visit us no more.