In a time we are losing some of the greats in multiple fields of poetry, I was sad to hear Adam Zagajewski has died in the last week. I was very lucky to spend two weeks with him in Macedonia at the Struga Festival where he won the Golden Wreath in 2018. He was completely humble & gracious & kind and laughed when I did stupid performances like reading with my mouth full of cake and when i read putting my feet in Lake Ohrid. He was a link to a different time, one of the great Polish post-war poets and while his poetry is very different from mine in almost every aspect, this is exactly why I liked him and his work so much - it was absolutely brilliant at what it was. Around him, on bus trips and in hotels, for those two weeks, I saw him give encouragement to everyone, including myself. A legend, truly, and someone I’m lucky to have briefly known.
This video here shows the festival as a mini documentary and at about 1.35 in you can see Adam, actually interrupted by the adhan of a nearby mosque. He was mid sentence. He just stopped, listened with everyone, and then said, we are now having a mystical experience.
