The book comprises the work of Danuta E. Kosk-Kosicka across a range of media: her own poems and essays, as well as her translations of the Poland-based poet Lidia Kosk (who is also her mother). The poems share themes and speak to each other across geographical and generational barriers. Lidia Kosk survived both World War II and the Communist regime that the Soviet Union introduced in Poland after the war; it was then the martial law imposed by that regime in 1981 that decided that her daughter would settle permanently in the States. In the essays, Danuta E. Kosk-Kosicka reveals how she, a...

Winner of CityLit Press's fifth annual Harriss Poetry Prize, Oblige the Light takes readers to "a magical space." From the introduction by judge Michael Salcman: "Astonishing metaphors and precise description of natural forces and historical events results in an atmospheric Magical Realism that borders on the Surrealistic. There is an emotional reserve that is almost gnomic so that life's most important subjects-the death of a parent, political oppression, one's aesthetic response to art and nature-can be discussed without forced sentimentality. The poems are the work of a profoundly serious...