Continued. Piotr Sommer

to the Carnival

       Don’t Worry, It Won’t Get Lost

       Receding Planets of the Rowan Tree

       Out of Town

       Prospects in Prose

       A Small Treatise on Non-Contradiction

       A Maple Leaf

       From elsewhere

       Little Graves

       From A Subsequent World / Kolejny Świat (1983)

       The January Star

       Mikuś, Adam, Wieniek, and Me

       Easter

       Celebrations

       Line

       A Visit

       Small Cripplings

       Hi, Helena

       Space

       Standards from the Seventies

       You Can Walk Tall

       Another World

       Hygiene

       Potatoes

       In the Provinces

       One Day

       From elsewhere

       Communication Department

       Confirmation

       From What We’re Remembered By / Pamiątki po nas (1980)

       First Sentence

       This Is Certain

       Two Poems for Suchy

       The Desk

       Hello and Return

       Old Frame Houses of Radość

       A Bit More Effort, Please

       Between Bus Stop and Home

       Domestic

       Says the Son

       Transportist

       Belated Letter

       From elsewhere

       Great, Now What

       Other Half

       From the American (1989)

       Things to Translate

       Afterlife

       Improper names

       Forefathers, our representatives

       Meeting people

       Among ourselves

       The zoo as text

       A song

       Untranslatability of squirrels

       List of poems, prose pieces, and translators

       About the author

       Acknowledgments

      Most of these poems were first published in the Polish collections listed in the table of contents. “Prospects in Prose,” “Communication Department,” “Sometimes, Yes,” and “Great, Now What” first appeared in Nowe stosunki wyrazów (New relations of words, 1997). “Little Graves,” “Confirmation,” and “Other Half” appeared in Kresy 4 (1999) and Res Publica Nowa 12 (2002). The poems listed under the headings “From elsewhere” are arranged chronologically.

      Sections of this book were published as Things to Translate and Other Poems (Bloodaxe Books, 1991). Grateful acknowledgments are also due to the editors of Agni, Aufbau, Chicago Review, The Honest Ulsterman, The New Yorker, Orient Express, Poetry, Poetry Review, The Threepenny Review, and The Times Literary Supplement in which other poems have since appeared.

      Some of the translators — John Ashbery, Edward Carey, Douglas Dunn, D. J. Enright, Michael Kasper, W. Martin, and Mark Slobin — looked through other parts of the manuscript as well, and their suggestions substantially improved it. For other friendly comments, special thanks to Tamara Duvall, August Kleinzahler, Madeline Levine, Nancy Pick, Christopher Reid, Fiona Sampson, Henry Shukman, Greta Slobin, Łukasz Sommer, and Stephanie Steiker.