Each day we wake and begin an interior dialogue about what is ethical and what is tolerable on this planet. Poet and translator Piotr Florczyk demonstrates in his lyrical evocations what that conversation might look like as he negotiates the distance between urban and wild, settled and migrant, Krakow and Los Angeles.
He is the author of Barefoot, a chapbook of poems, as well as Los Angeles Sketchbook, a volume of brief essays and photographs. Florczyk was born and raised in Krakow, Poland. He moved to the United States when he was sixteen. While he never forgets his homeland, Florczyk pens poems that establish him as a major American voice.
Florczyk is as agile and deft in his American setting of California as he is when remembering his native Poland. These are the exquisite poems of an author who is comfortable in two worlds. He writes of kitchen utensils and soccer with the same ease that he employs while speaking of Poland. Come out, you worm, you say to the bruised hole at the center. Then you bite around it—and wait for something to answer.
The carafe of icy water is a beauty. From the center of the table, it reflects sunlight onto the plates and mugs of mortals. He enters the countryside only to decide to leave it and return to the city. Rooted in the simplicity of the everyday, these poems offer an almost surreal grasp of the complexity of human life.
East and West is a magnificent book. The poem sets the mood for the rest of the collection by meditating on changes—in the person who has left as well as in the home that was left behind. And yet, change is more complex and more profound in the individuals who adjust to new lives.
