Polish poets featured in The New Yorker's 'A Century of Poetry'

Several Polish poets have been included in The New Yorker's "A Century of Poetry 1925-2025," a collection of verse published in the American magazine over the past 100 years.

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The anthology opens with "Try to Praise the Mutilated World" by Polish poet Adam Zagajewski, a response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York.

The poem first apeared in The New Yorker's memorial edition for September 11, 2001, in a translation by Clare Cavanagh.

Zagajewski, an internationally acclaimed poet, novelist, essayist and translator, died in 2021 at the age of 75.

The anthology also includes three short poems by Nobel Prize-winning Polish poet Czesław Miłosz (1911-2004), two poems by fellow Nobel laureate Wisława Szymborska (1923-2012), two by Zbigniew Herbert (1924-1998), and one by poet, essayist and critic Tadeusz Dąbrowski, born in 1979.

Kevin Young, poet, New Yorker poetry editor and the editor of A Century of Poetry in The New Yorker, went through the history of poetry appearing in The New Yorker, and what was left out on the @BrianLehrer Show. https://t.co/SnfANsqwmj

— WNYC 🎙 (@WNYC) March 10, 2025

"A Century of Poetry" traces the history of poetry published in The New Yorker as the magazine marks its centennial.

(mk/gs)