Aniela Gregorek

Native Foreigners: Jewish-Polish Poetry Between the World Wars Aniela Gregorek

Poetry. Jewish Studies. Selected and translated from the Polish by Aniela and Jerzy Gregorek. In their preface to this anthology, translators Aniela and Jerzy Gregorek say that they hope we will experience what they themselves did when they encountered these poems in the original Polish. Surely, they can rest easy. Reading the fourteen heartsongs of NATIVE FOREIGNERS, you will be struck, as I've been, almost to silence by their depth of symbolic memory, by their intimacy, by the various diasporic losses these poet exiles had to endure--we do not even have birth--&/or death-dates for several of them. Their lyrics, however stark, however sad and filled with regret, were their consolation. Accompanied, now, by evocative drawings done by a genius, the poets are at last safe, will remain immortal within us as we read them.--William Heyen, Author, SHOAH TRAIN (Etruscan Press, 2003), National Book Award finalist