SOURCE: "Between Fire and Sleep," in Los Angeles Times Book Review, February 1, 1998, p. 6

In the following review, Anders suggests that in Mysticism for Beginners Zagajewski understands the contradictions intrinsic to modern mystical poetry but demonstrates that poetry can still transcend irony.

In the title poem of this remarkable volume by Polish poet Adam Zagajewski, the author takes us to an Italian town (Montepulciano in Tuscany) where, among the usual splendors of such places (the dusk "erasing the outlines of medieval houses," "olive trees on little hills," "stained-glass windows like butterfly wings"), he suddenly confesses his belief that the world given to our senses may not be all there is, that all this,

 and any journey, any kind of trip,
are only mysticism for beginners,
the elementary course, prelude
to a test that's been
postponed. 

The phrase "mysticism for beginners," however, comes from the cover of a book spotted...