World Shared

Dariusz Sosnicki (born in 1969 in Kalisz) is a poet, essayist and editor. He graduated from the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan with a degree in Philosophy. He was co-editor of the art-zine Juz Jest Jutro (1991--1994) and co-founder and co-editor of the influential Polish literary biweekly Nowy Nurt (1994--1996). In 1994 he published the collection of poems Marlewo, which received the best first book award from the magazine Czas Kultury. In 2001, he participated in International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. Next year, his fourth collection of poems Symmetry was shortlisted for "Polityka" Passport and received the New Books Review Prize. Sosnicki's poems and literary essays have been published in many magazines and anthologies, in both Polish and in translation. From 2005-2013 he worked at W.A.B. Publishing House as editor of Polish contemporary fiction. He lives in Poznan. Piotr Florczyk is a poet, essayist, and translator from his native Polish. He is editor and translator of Froth: Poems by Jaroslaw Mikolajewski (Calypso Editions, 2013), The Folding Star and Other Poems by Jacek Gutorow (BOA Editions, 2012), Building the Barricade and Other Poems of Anna Swir (Calypso Editions, 2011), and Been and Gone: Poems of Julian Kornhauser (Marick Press, 2009). He teaches at University of San Diego and at San Diego State University. Boris Dralyuk holds a PhD in Slavic Languages and Literatures from UCLA. He is the translator of Leo Tolstoy's How Much Land Does a Man Need (Calypso Editions, 2010), A Slap in the Face: Four Russian Futurist Manifestos (Insert Blanc Press, 2013), and Anton Chekhov's Little Trilogy (forthcoming from Calypso Editions, 2014), and co-translator of Polina Barskova's The Zoo in Winter: Selected Poems (Melville House, 2011). He is also the co-editor, with Robert Chandler and Irina Mashinski, of the forthcoming Anthology of Russian Poetry from Pushkin to Brodsky (Penguin Classics, 2015). He received First Prize in the 2011 Compass Translation Award competition, and, with Irina Mashinski, First Prize in the 2012 Joseph Brodsky/Stephen Spender Translation Prize competition.

"The World Shared is a dream-catalogue of surrealist riffs and humble strangeness." --Biblioasis "This first American book from the prolific and celebrated Polish poet and critic not only survives translation; its urbane, articulate, unpredictable free verse positively flourishes in the American English that the facing-page edition provides ... the poetry introduced here has come to stay." --Publishers Weekly "[The World Shared] is destined to become an international classic ... Sosnicki is a fearless and tenacious intellectual whose poetry exhibits flashes of brilliance that illuminate our most obscure and often unacknowledged fears about contemporary life." --The Journal "Sosnicki has loads of talent, and this volume offers North American readers entry into his necessary poetry ... "Sosnicki reaches out to each of us, tries to wipe the anonymity off our faces, and to recover, if not rescue us, as an archeologist recovers a mud-smeared amulet from a deep stratum." --Entropy

• TABLE OF CONTENTS ONE4LIGHTHOUSE KEEPER5FROM THE GROUND FLOOR6GOING DOWN7VISIONS OF THE MIDWEST PRAIRIE8WYNTON MARSALIS AND THE BOSTON SYPHONY ORCHESTRA UNDER THE DIRECTION OF SEIJI OZAWA ON THE FRENCH MUSIC STATION “MEZZO”10MONSTER12CHINESE ZODIAK13A WORKER ON A SCAFFOLD, A MINOR RASTER OF THE DEBRIS NETTING14THREE ROOKS15POEM AGAINST MONEY16A MOUSE IN A BUCKET17MARLEWO18RAIN. A RHETORICAL QUESTION19IN WINTER, THREE HOURS BEFORE DAWN20TWO21MR. P. CONFESSES: I’M NOT AN URBAN GUERILLA22MR. AND MRS. P. AND MOTOR VEHICLES23MR. AND MRS. P. AND THE SADNESS OF ANIMALS24ALPHABET OF MR. P.: THE ETHOS OF READING25ALPHABET OF MRS. P.: TABLE26ALPHABET OF MR. P.: SHOPPING BAG27ALPHABET OF MR. P.: SHOES or the Opinion of Mr. P. on the 2008 Olympics28ALPHABET OF MR. P.: AUTUMN COAT29MR. AND MRS. P. AND ANTI-WANDA30ALPHABET OF MRS. P.: POTTED PLANTS (in December)31MR. AND MRS. P. AND THE PRICE OF SUGAR32MR. AND MRS. P. FANTASIZE ABOUT MOVING or On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life33SUMMER OF MR. AND MRS. P.34THREE35THAW36THE HYDRANT ON LACHOWICKA STREET37BIRD SONG38WASPS39HOW DOES ONE GO DOWN THE STAIRS40MAUNDY THURSDAY41THE IKARUS42TONERSTAINS43OF THINGS AND PEOPLE44HOLY CROSS LAMENT45EARTHLY DELIGHTS46NOTES48ACKNOWLEDGMENTS49[Polish poems not yet included]