Julia Hartwig is a poet too little known in America: Countryman Czeslaw Milosz called her “the grande dame of Polish poetry.” This volume is a slim but excellent survey of 50 years of her work. Her obsession is the waxing and waning of freedom, both metaphorically and literally, in nature. For Hartwig, it can be assured only through the exercise of iron will: “All our effort put into building the conviction / we won’t surrender to sheer force.”