An Interview with Czeslaw Milosz
An Interview with Czeslaw Milosz | Czesław Miłosz and Nathan Gardels | The New York Review of Books An Interview with Czeslaw Milosz Czesław Miłosz and Nathan Gardels February 27, 1986 issue The following interview with Czeslaw Milosz took place in Berkeley, California, in August 1985 . The East NATHAN GARDELS: Your poems are very popular today in Poland. Why is poetry so important there? CZESLAW MILOSZ: At moments of cataclysm and upheaval, poetry becomes popular as the expression of the people’s hope, aspirations, and identity. In such moments, poetry is the most expressive voice of freedom. Also, poetry has been popular in Poland for centuries. On the other hand, maybe there are some very down-to-earth reasons. In the Europe occupied by the Nazis, poetry was the most handy instrument of moral resistance because you could copy a poem and pass it from hand to hand. Prose was too long and difficult for this purpose. So there are various reasons, historical and practical. G: In P...