The manuscripts, documents, and photographs on display are lesser-known aspects of Milosz’s relationship with America. What will be especially analyzed will be the multifaceted relationships with his adopted home in California and fellow émigré authors. How he embraced and distained his translations with the English language will also be discussed.
An academic poetry conference at Claremont McKenna College in Los Angeles regarding the celebrated author just concluded.
Centennial and Poetry of Milosz Featured in N.Y.
An evening of remembrance and poetry will be held at Columbia University on Saturday, October 27, 2011 at 5:30 pm., in the Butler Library. It will be a celebration of the memorabilia and poems of Czeslaw Milosz.
He died in 2004 at the age of 93 and had previously been a professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of California-Berkley from 1961 to 1998.
Milosz gained recognition for his poetry when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1980. There will also be an exhibition of artifacts and letters opening at the Butler Library.
Controversy always followed him. He refused to categorically identify himself as either a Pole or a Lithuanian. He defected to France in 1951 and immigrated to the United States in 1960.
A collection of his essays published as “To Begin Where I Am” and “The Captive Mind” in 1953 brought him great notoriety. The author will be honored with comments by Professor Helen Vendler of Harvard University. The event will coincide with other multilingual readings of his poetry by members of the Colombia University community. Also featured will be Colombia’s Alan Timberlake and Dr. Anna Frajlich, who will both do readings.
In California, another celebration will be hosted by the Polish Arts and Culture Foundation of San Francisco when they present readings of Milosz on Saturday October 29, at 2:00 PM. at the Main Library’s Koret Auditorium. A panel of literary notables, friends and family will read some of his works representing his European experiences and influences.
http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/milosz/
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/ece/images/Milosz_exhibition1.jpg
http://sfpl.org/index.php?pg=1006403801