"Rilke's first great work . . . [Snow's translation] is clear, accurate, and fluent."—Stephen Mitchell

"Can there be poetry about the Holocaust? Isn't this kind of writing an attempt to escape—or to exploit—the suffering of millions? Poet and anthologist Schiff confronts these questions in her eloquent introduction. One answer she finds is that to remain silent is also to lie. Fifty years after the liberation of Auschwitz, great literature about the Holocaust has grown to a flood . . . The pieces here are of astonishing power. In English and in translation from many languages, [nearly 60] poets—including Wiesel, Fink, Brecht, Yevtushenko, Auden, and Sachs—give voice to what seems unspeakable. Schiff points out that compelling historical accounts document the facts and numbers, but a poem, like a story, makes us imagine how it felt for one person. These poems are stark and deceptively simple. No one can read them all at once. Each poem leaves you with an indelible memory. In words of one syllable, the Polish poet Rozewicz writes about having to reinvent language after Auschwitz ('this is a man / this is a tree this is bread' ). There's no healing in this tragedy: the last poem, by Primo Levi, is like a shout of rage to us to remember."—Hazel Rochman, Booklist

"David Young's version of Petrarch will refresh our images of the West's crucial lyric poet. We are given a Petrarch in our own vernacular, with echoes of Wyatt, Shakespeare, and many who come after."—Harold Bloom

"Zagajewski's poems pull us from whatever routine threatens to dull our senses, from whatever might lull us into mere existence. This is an astonishing book."—Philip Boehm, The New York Times Book Review