Are we allowed to choose where we belong? What pressures make us feel that we should belong somewhere? This book brings together four major poets--Heaney, Mahon, Zagajewski, and Hartwig--who ask themselves these questions throughout their lives. They start by assuming that we can choose not to belong, but know this is easier said than done. Something in them is awry, leading them to travel, emigrate, and return dissatisfied with all forms of belonging.

Writer after writer has suggested that Polish and Irish literature bear some uncanny similarities, particularly in the twentieth...