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azidy's review against another edition
dark
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
3.0
old_oak_owl's review against another edition
5.0
I was maybe twenty.
In the junkyard under the viaduct built by Hitler
I hunted for relics from that war, relics
of the iron age, bayonets and helmets of whichever
army, I didn't care, I dreamed of great discoveries -
...
but I found neither bayonets
nor gold, only rust was everywhere,
rust's brown hatred; I was afraid
that it might penetrate my heart.
[Polish man reflecting on the poisonous and painful heritage of Nazi ideology].
So intricate, so beautiful.
Zagajewski's poetry collection "Asymmetry" heavily focuses on the idea of heritage, but it never forces you to commemorate said heritage, to glorify or embrace it. Rather it reminds you that it's there - the good, the bad, and the ugly. It reminds you that those experiences and places shaped you into the person you are today; it encourages you as a reader to reflect on them to understand what lays at the foundations of your soul.
Every page either had a line that was so masterfully written that I couldn't comprehend how someone can have such a strong grasp over language, or a line that would send me spiraling so deep into my thoughts and emotions that I'll end up staring at the wall for 10 minutes thinking about an experience I forgot I had as a child.
Each poem resonated with me in its unique way, but if I have to pick my favorites to recommend, I'd say to look into these two. Summer 95' tells a story of how a beautiful careless summer of 1995 in Srebrenica, Bosnia descended into the bloody massacre and madness. Meanwhile, That Day would connect with everyone more personally - I read it around the time of Chadwick Boseman's death, and it perfectly portrayed the emotions one experiences when someone you admire so dearly passes away.
In the junkyard under the viaduct built by Hitler
I hunted for relics from that war, relics
of the iron age, bayonets and helmets of whichever
army, I didn't care, I dreamed of great discoveries -
...
but I found neither bayonets
nor gold, only rust was everywhere,
rust's brown hatred; I was afraid
that it might penetrate my heart.
[Polish man reflecting on the poisonous and painful heritage of Nazi ideology].
So intricate, so beautiful.
Zagajewski's poetry collection "Asymmetry" heavily focuses on the idea of heritage, but it never forces you to commemorate said heritage, to glorify or embrace it. Rather it reminds you that it's there - the good, the bad, and the ugly. It reminds you that those experiences and places shaped you into the person you are today; it encourages you as a reader to reflect on them to understand what lays at the foundations of your soul.
Every page either had a line that was so masterfully written that I couldn't comprehend how someone can have such a strong grasp over language, or a line that would send me spiraling so deep into my thoughts and emotions that I'll end up staring at the wall for 10 minutes thinking about an experience I forgot I had as a child.
Each poem resonated with me in its unique way, but if I have to pick my favorites to recommend, I'd say to look into these two. Summer 95' tells a story of how a beautiful careless summer of 1995 in Srebrenica, Bosnia descended into the bloody massacre and madness. Meanwhile, That Day would connect with everyone more personally - I read it around the time of Chadwick Boseman's death, and it perfectly portrayed the emotions one experiences when someone you admire so dearly passes away.
suddenflamingword's review against another edition
3.0
2.5
There's something about Post-Cold War poetry from poets of former Soviet satellites that I've read (thinking here of Illya Kaminsky's [b:Dancing in Odessa|405981|Dancing in Odessa|Ilya Kaminsky|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348300223l/405981._SY75_.jpg|395327] and Cristina Bejan's [b:Green Horses on the Walls|54195302|Green Horses on the Walls|Cristina A. Bejan|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-a91bf249278a81aabab721ef782c4a74.png|84563796]) which pivots on an overt nostalgic idealism. It calls to mind Svetlana Boym's thoughts in [b:The Future of Nostalgia|75902|The Future of Nostalgia|Svetlana Boym|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348631548l/75902._SY75_.jpg|73427] and an abbreviate piece appropriately named "Nostalgia," where she writes "the imperative of a contemporary nostalgic: to be homesick and to be sick of being at home—occasionally at the same time." Boym is, like the above poets, just as nostalgic in her vision.
I don't have a theory about this. It's just an observation about temperament, and why I consistently don't engage well with these works. The reason I started reading this in the first place was because of Zagajewski's death a little over a week ago, and curiosity when someone shared his post-9/11 poem "Try To Praise A Mutilated World." Yet the very problem I have with this homesick-but-sick-of-home tone in poetry is summarized in the line "You must praise the mutilated world." As touching as flitting, elegaic grief is, it seems to mask a arrogance-bordering certitude. It feels like a depressive helplessly watching a parent sink into Alzheimer's.
Which is more or less the tone of this collection, embodied in poems that depicts a young poet "hunting for relics" from WWII while ironically romanticizing the hunt as "Heinrich Schliemann/once sought Hector and Achilles in Asia Minor." He only finds "rust's brown hatred." In his irony, equivocating wars in pursuit of a transcendent ideal that resists the concept of war (layered irony since Schliemann himself was guilty of erasing history, using dynamite for excavation). As well, lines such as
in "Bertolt Brecht in Eternity" come across as an attempt to speak with an authoritative voice that rejects the conceit of authority, to speak from a true place of neutral longing. This being heightened by the later lines, "You were a cautious revolutionary—but can an oxymoron/save the world?"
And the problem is clear in the poem which the collection's title refers to, "Senior Dance." Using asymmetry as a way to talk about the inability to admire his mother (metonymic for the past and memory itself) "for different reasons, completely different" before and during the war, and to show the asymmetry between them because she seemed "feeble, old-fashioned." Yet now, as a (then) 72 year old man, he can see her
Which comes across as insufferably Platonic nostalgia - there is Justice out there, an Ideal, which is both complex (totally real) and impossible. It doesn't have the comical bite of Kafka talking about there being hope for God, but not for us. Nor the rhetorical realism of Hampton exclaiming "revolutionary suicide." Perhaps one could say this is "reflective nostalgia" (using Boym's terms), and I could see the case in other poems, possibly earlier poems. But not in "Senior Dance," and not through most of this collection.
In the end, Asymmetry is at its best when spiritual, familial. When speaking of his mother's constant recalling of a speaking contest where she disproved the sexist assumptions of the judges, but didn't win, recalling himself how he thought he nostalgia was ridiculous, especially since she lost, before concluding that "after decades/of her memory's unceasing labor,/she finally carried the day." When recalling his cousin Hannes who teased him about his poetry, thinking it unintelligent, before dying young, leaving behind his intellectual's notes which no one understood (although this is also another example of irony I'm not entirely a fan of). This is why I rounded up in the first place. Because there is beauty here, but not Just beauty; just beauty.
There's something about Post-Cold War poetry from poets of former Soviet satellites that I've read (thinking here of Illya Kaminsky's [b:Dancing in Odessa|405981|Dancing in Odessa|Ilya Kaminsky|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348300223l/405981._SY75_.jpg|395327] and Cristina Bejan's [b:Green Horses on the Walls|54195302|Green Horses on the Walls|Cristina A. Bejan|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-a91bf249278a81aabab721ef782c4a74.png|84563796]) which pivots on an overt nostalgic idealism. It calls to mind Svetlana Boym's thoughts in [b:The Future of Nostalgia|75902|The Future of Nostalgia|Svetlana Boym|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348631548l/75902._SY75_.jpg|73427] and an abbreviate piece appropriately named "Nostalgia," where she writes "the imperative of a contemporary nostalgic: to be homesick and to be sick of being at home—occasionally at the same time." Boym is, like the above poets, just as nostalgic in her vision.
I don't have a theory about this. It's just an observation about temperament, and why I consistently don't engage well with these works. The reason I started reading this in the first place was because of Zagajewski's death a little over a week ago, and curiosity when someone shared his post-9/11 poem "Try To Praise A Mutilated World." Yet the very problem I have with this homesick-but-sick-of-home tone in poetry is summarized in the line "You must praise the mutilated world." As touching as flitting, elegaic grief is, it seems to mask a arrogance-bordering certitude. It feels like a depressive helplessly watching a parent sink into Alzheimer's.
Which is more or less the tone of this collection, embodied in poems that depicts a young poet "hunting for relics" from WWII while ironically romanticizing the hunt as "Heinrich Schliemann/once sought Hector and Achilles in Asia Minor." He only finds "rust's brown hatred." In his irony, equivocating wars in pursuit of a transcendent ideal that resists the concept of war (layered irony since Schliemann himself was guilty of erasing history, using dynamite for excavation). As well, lines such as
Your bizarre errors, your worship of doctrine
lie beside you like axes and spears in Neolithic graves
equally useful, equally necessary
in "Bertolt Brecht in Eternity" come across as an attempt to speak with an authoritative voice that rejects the conceit of authority, to speak from a true place of neutral longing. This being heightened by the later lines, "You were a cautious revolutionary—but can an oxymoron/save the world?"
And the problem is clear in the poem which the collection's title refers to, "Senior Dance." Using asymmetry as a way to talk about the inability to admire his mother (metonymic for the past and memory itself) "for different reasons, completely different" before and during the war, and to show the asymmetry between them because she seemed "feeble, old-fashioned." Yet now, as a (then) 72 year old man, he can see her
in truth’s sharp light,
sharp and complex,
complex and just,
just and unattainable,
unattainable and splendid.
Which comes across as insufferably Platonic nostalgia - there is Justice out there, an Ideal, which is both complex (totally real) and impossible. It doesn't have the comical bite of Kafka talking about there being hope for God, but not for us. Nor the rhetorical realism of Hampton exclaiming "revolutionary suicide." Perhaps one could say this is "reflective nostalgia" (using Boym's terms), and I could see the case in other poems, possibly earlier poems. But not in "Senior Dance," and not through most of this collection.
In the end, Asymmetry is at its best when spiritual, familial. When speaking of his mother's constant recalling of a speaking contest where she disproved the sexist assumptions of the judges, but didn't win, recalling himself how he thought he nostalgia was ridiculous, especially since she lost, before concluding that "after decades/of her memory's unceasing labor,/she finally carried the day." When recalling his cousin Hannes who teased him about his poetry, thinking it unintelligent, before dying young, leaving behind his intellectual's notes which no one understood (although this is also another example of irony I'm not entirely a fan of). This is why I rounded up in the first place. Because there is beauty here, but not Just beauty; just beauty.
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