A Slight Exaggeration - Adam Zagajewski 1945-2021 (3.26.21)

The Polish poet, Adam Zagajewski, has passed on.  An obit is in today's NYT.  He thought "a slight exaggeration" is a fairly accurate description of the art of poetry.  But see the Times obit for the origin of this curious notion.

Zagajewski was yet another East European poet whose life work reflected giving up home.  So many of us who write poetry, who have not had to experience such dislocation in our lives, can only read the work and try to imagine. 

Moving Out and In

We make the world perfect with our intellect,
a perfect place to be, and have no home,
 
not until we correct it, little by little,
make it better, a better place, more human.
 
It stands corrected then, our livable error,
a place we can move out of, into.