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Contributor

Zbigniew Herbert

Contributor

Zbigniew Herbert

Zbigniew Herbert (1924–98) is one of the central figures of postwar European poetry; the author of nine volumes of poetry and three collections of essays, he also wrote for stage and radio. He received many important international literary prizes, inluding the Jerusalem Prize. His Collected Poems was published by Ecco Press in 2006.

Articles by Zbigniew Herbert

Look
By Zbigniew Herbert
The blue winter sky like a stone on which angelssublime and quite unearthly sharpen their wingsmoving on rungs of radiance on crags of shadowthey gradually sink into the imaginary heavensbut in another…
Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles
Principality
By Zbigniew Herbert
Marked in the guidebook with two stars (in reality there are more) the whole principality, that is to say the city, the sea and a stretch of sky, looks great at first glance. The graves are whitewashed,…
Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles
Angels of Civilization
By Zbigniew Herbert
At the turn of the century it seemed that angels were leaving us forever and that every trace of them would be lost. They were still employed here and there by funeral services. They also held up unfashionable…
Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles
She was doing her hair
By Zbigniew Herbert
She was doing her hair before going to bedand in front of the mirror it lasted an infinitely long timebetween one bending of the arm at the elbow and anotherepochs passed from her hair soldiers of the…
Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles
On Translating Poetry
By Zbigniew Herbert
Like a clumsy bumblebeehe alights on a flowerbending the fragile stemhe elbows his waythrough rows of petalslike the pages of a dictionaryhe wants inwhere the fragrance and the sweetness areand though…
Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles
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