Zagajewski, Adam. Tremor. Farrar. 1985. c.83p. tr. from Polish by Renata Gorczynski. ISBN 0-374-27873-3. $11.95. poetry These collections encompass two generations of East European poetry. Prolific and reclusive, Czech poet Holan (1905-80) chose to remain in his homeland despite an official ban on his work until 1963. His poems are often stories reflecting some ``knowledge of the heart.'' Pain and death inform his work, though love is never far away: ``free, you liberate, and I cannot want more.'' Zagajewski, on the other hand, born in Lvov in 1946, left Poland for Paris soon after martial law was declared. Both lyrical and discursive, Tremor introduces an exciting and major new poetic voice. Zagajewski pursues ordinary situations in contemporary life to accentuate divisions and contradictionsa waiting room (``We have always been divided. Men, nations,/waiting rooms.''), or an escalator (``We/ who ride down already know: no one is waiting/ up there.''). And yet he knows, ``What was ordinary isn't possible anymore/ A different wind turns the tin vane.'' Both volumes are highly recommended for foreign poetry collections.

Adam Zagajewski (b. 21 June 1945 in Lwów, Soviet Union (now Lviv, Ukraine)) is a Polish poet, novelist, and essayist.

He had lived in Paris since 1981. In 2002 he has moved to Kraków. His poem Try To Praise The Mutilated World, printed in The New Yorker, became famous after 9/11. He currently is a faculty member on the University of Chicago's Committee on Social Thought, and teaches two classes, one on fellow Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz.