Letter #1: Adam Zagajewski

Dear Adam,

For months I’ve been reading and reading—nearly all poetry—and I’ve come across individual poems that have resonated with me, a few that have inspired me, and even one that made me weep. But just this week I took your book—Without End—from my shelf, and started, more seriously this time, to read it again. I first bought the book after encountering your poem, “The Generation,” in an essay by Carl Dennis. I was blown away at the time by the sweep of the poem, the historical references, the philosophical considerations of death and religion, but most of all by your statement that, “Every thought is a light coin which / rolls, in its shy secretive / being, into a song, into a painting.” That image was something I kept, something I still keep. I have carried that coin ever since, its face now worn by the ongoing praise of my forefinger and thumb.

And then this morning, as I made my way deeper into the poems gathered from Mysticism for Beginners, I was simply moved. When I’d put the book down, your poems haunted, stirring me back to the book. This hadn’t happened since I read all of Jack Gilbert’s work in a fever last fall. Your poems awakened words and images inside of me and suddenly I want to write again.

The way you close transformation—“I’ve taken long walks, / craving one thing only:
lightning, / transformation, / you”—echoes my experience of late as a reader. I have been waiting for and craving the burst and surge that springs—for me—from writing and from reading. And I am grateful to you for that. I am also grateful for so many of your images, your statements, your poems. Here are a few that I treasure…

from “A Quick Poem”

Far from dawn. Far from home.
In place of walls—sheet metal.
Instead of a vigil—a flight.
Travel instead of remembrance.


from “The Greenhouse”

Suddenly you see the world lit differently,
other people’s doors swing open for a moment,
you read their hidden thoughts, their holidays don’t hurt,
their happiness is less opaque, their faces
almost beautiful.


from “Postcards”

We had nowhere to go
although the day was empty
like a sleeve buoyed by the wind.


from “A Shell”

A poem may hold the thunder’s echo
like a shell touched by Orpheus
as he fled. Time takes life away
and gives us memory, gold with flame,
black with embers.


from “Letter from a Reader”

Write about those moments
when friendships footbridges
seem more enduring
than despair.


from “That’s Sicily”

That’s Sicily, someone whispered,
three-cornered island, owl’s breath,
handkerchief of the dead.


From “Self-Portrait”

I read poets, living and dead, who teach me
tenacity, faith, and pride. I try to understand
the great philosophers—but usually catch just
scraps of their precious thoughts.


rom “Cello”

Not everything turns into song
though. Sometimes you catch
a murmur or a whisper:
I’m lonely,
I can’t sleep.


from “She Wrote in Darkness”

Darkness wrote,
having taken this middle-aged woman
for its fountain pen.


I am grateful for whoever took you for his fountain pen. I am grateful for the transformations that have come for me while reading your work. I am now full of ways to think of cello strings, and houses, and traveling, and pianos, and maps of Mediterranean countries, and maybe even the beginnings of a kind of mysticism I found in your poems.

Please forgive the long list of your images and words which you obviously already know. I have included them here for two reasons. First, I wanted you to know the particulars of what I so loved and admired in your work. Second, I thought that given the (semi)public nature of this letter—which I hope you will someday stumble across or be alerted to—perhaps there are would-be readers of your work who might find a few ways in through some of my favorite portals.

Your poems are, for me, a gift. I too read poets, “living and dead, who teach me.” They are often my deepest teachers. They give me lessons I find nowhere else. And for those who are still living, I want to say thanks. If, as a byproduct of this letter, it opens one new person to your work, I am happy to have said my thanks in this strange, vast, public (cyber) space.

With gratitude,

Peter Gaines