A Thin Slice of Anxiety

“When you look up anti-poetry you are likely to run into the work of Nicanor Parra. Parra said something like “real seriousness” resides in the “comic.” We can of course go further. It is also cosmic. Like Parra, Grzegorz Wróblewski’s poetry is often anti-poetic and minimalist. Many of the speakers resemble visitors from another planet. There is a kind of unblinking reportage of the absurdity of our existence. It is sometimes terrible and sometimes humorous and often both.”

I wrote a review of Grzegorz Wróblewski’s Dear Beloved Humans. A selection of his poetry translated into English from the 1980s-2020s. There are many strands in Wróblewski’s poetry. I focused on the absurdist “anti-poetic” realism. Also the absurdism. Thanks to Cody Sexton for publishing the review.

Check out the review at A Thin Slice of Anxiety