From one of Poland's most acclaimed poets comes a new collection of poems and plays spanning almost five decades and translated for the first time.
Encapsulating the prolific work of the poet and playwright Zbigniew Herbert, “Reconstruction of the Poet” is both a celebration of a profound life of letters and a wide-ranging collection of work never published before that casts a new light on a much-loved poet. Spanning 1950-1998, “Reconstruction of the Poet” contains three plays, “The Philosophers Cave”, “The Other Room”, and “Reconstruction of the Poet”, and over fifty poems. This collection takes the reader through the mind of a man attempting to look at the ruins of a post-war world while seeking the living sources of European culture, with poems commemorating contemporaries fallen in wartime, erotic experience, and friendship, and exploring political and metaphysical passions.
In narrating the three radio plays that open this audiobook, Simon Vance does not attempt to create voices for the many characters. Instead, he reads the tags that identify the speakers and provides each one with an emotional life. Postwar Polish writer Zbigniew Herbert's plays are mostly about philosophy anyway, so deep characterization is not so relevant. The poems here--like the plays, previous
