My poor son, forgive your mother,my poor son, forgive me for giving birth to you,
I won’t do it anymore.
This poem, cited in its entirety, is ‘My Poor Son’ by the Polish writer Ryszard Krynicki, who will be seventy-five years old in June 2018. Likely the finest poet in the generation after Zbigniew Herbert, the dazzling philosopher of modern Polish verse who died twenty years ago, Krynicki ... (read more)