On November 1st book “Crops” translated by professor Peter Constantine will be published by Rain Taxi. The book is accompanied by blurbs by Imani Perry, Sam Lipstyle, Cynthia Zarin and Richard Deming.
Rain Taxi’s OHM Editions is proud to publish a stunning chapbook of verse by award-winning Polish poet and musician Grzegorz Kwiatkowski.
“These poems’ voices are woven together in a subtle and ruthless tapestry: farmers speak of recurring massacres as if they were seasonal crop cycles; German soldiers remember the droll image of desperate people foolishly running in circles as they are hunted down in the fields; a six-year-old girl named Buzia reports in a brief and stark obituary how she was murdered. The poems are frightening testimonies: short, distilled, often cool and cold. Particularly frightening are the narrations of the perpetrators and the apologists, voicing in drab banality acts of sudden and devastating brutality. As Grzegorz Kwiatkowski warns: “We must not forget our tragic past because it might well return. The mechanism for its return has already been set in motion.”
—From the Translator’s Foreword
ADVANCE PRAISE FOR CROPS
These poems are brutal, strangely exquisite, and, unfortunately, still necessary. With his words and his music and his relentless campaign of stark honesty and regenerative connection, Grzegorz Kwiatkowski is a genuine glimmer of hope in a darkening world.
—Sam Lipsyte
I have found these poems to be emotionally compelling and profound. I expect fellow readers will enjoy this beautiful work.
—Imani Perry
Grzegorz Kwiatkowski once said, “I think that we should be conscious about the evil that is inside every one of us.” In his collection Crops, Kwiatkowski’s taut, tense poems sound the depths of our darkest history. Masterfully rendered by Peter Constantine, one of our most brilliant translators, Crops reveals that the unforgettable is also the undeniable. Is it beautiful? I say it is powerfully necessary, unrelentingly direct. I say it burns.
—Richard Deming
In these searing, darkly beautiful, indelible poems, Kwiatkowski reminds us of what, at our peril, we must not forget.
—Cynthia Zarin
