'The Vulgarity of the Human Heart'

Thanks to Brian Sholis for sending me a link to a fine review in the Washington Post, by Anthony Cuda, of The Collected Poems: 1956-1998, by Zbigniew Herbert. Here's a sample:

"Despite having witnessed systematic oppression in Poland under Nazi and Soviet occupation, Herbert aims his political critique not at regimes or ideologies but at the blindness and corruption that disfigure human intimacy. His only enemy, as Joseph Brodsky aptly suggested, is the vulgarity of the human heart. Even his own failings do not escape censure; instead, they are the most bitter to recall."