We used to have a slim Penguin paperback, Five Polish Poets, in which I first read Tadeusz Różewicz. He was 18 at the start of World War II, and with his older brother, joined the Polish resistance. His brother was captured, tortured and killed by the Gestapo, but Tadeusz survived. After the war, he published his first of many volumes of poems called Anxiety, “piercingly direct” poems with a breath-taking realism. The NY Times carried his obituary today. Here’s a poem from the late Mr. Różewicz: