Tomasz Różycki’s most recent collection, Letter by Letter (in which this poem appears), was a finalist for the prestigious Wisława Szymborska Prize. His work has been translated into numerous languages and anthologized widely. Over the last decade, he has garnered almost every prize Poland has to offer, as well as widespread critical acclaim internationally. Mira Rosenthal’s translation of his volume Colonies won the Northern California Book Award and was a finalist for numerous other prizes, including the International Griffin Poetry Prize and the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize. In 2018 he was a DAAD Artist-in-Residence in Berlin. He teaches at Opole University.