Poet of wonder ...

Cynthia Haven on Czeslaw Milosz around the world | TLS.

Orr’s criticism underscores how much the West has exhausted its fascination with the poetry of historical circumstance. As Robert Hass put it, readers “press their noses longingly against the window of people who have had dramatic historical experiences”. But the comments also expose a fundamental misunderstanding. Orr’s remarks reduce Milosz to a poet of witness, when he clearly wished to be considered a religious poet, and I would add that he is a poet of wonder as well.