Unattainable earth cover

Unattainable earth

by Czesław Miłosz

In his first collection of new poems since receiving the Nobel Prize in 1980, Milosz has changed the very idea of what a book of poetry can be. He combines verse, prose poems, prose jottings, pensees, quotations, translations, and even fragments from personal letters into the shape of a writer's notebook. Under the surface of these multiple forms, a deeper unity appears. Whether Milosz meditates on sexuality, language, the problems of belief, urban street life, or the mysterious annihilating power of time, his central theme is the desire to confront the ecstatic experience of life on earth. The volume also includes poems of Walt Whitman and D.H. Lawrence which Milosz translated into Polish. ISBN 0-88001-098-3 : $17.95.

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Chappie’s discussion starters

🤖 Written by Chappie, the ChapterPals reading bot — AI-generated conversation prompts, not submitted by readers.

  1. Which character stayed with you after you turned the last page, and why?
  2. Was there a moment where you disagreed with a character’s choice? What would you have done?
  3. What theme did this book keep circling back to — and did it earn its ending?
  4. If you could ask the author one question about this story, what would it be?
  5. Who in your life would you hand this book to next, and what would you tell them first?