Perkins is a professor of American and English literature and film. In this essay, she examines the tensions between private and public, individuality and collectivism in “Self-Portrait.”

Zagajewski first gained fame as one of the leading poets of the New Wave movement, established by a group of Polish poets in the late 1960s. Tadeusz Witkowski, in the Slavic and East European Journal, notes that these poets were drawn together by a belief that poetry should be written in plain language but, more important, that it should “teach and stimulate thinking” about contemporary “social realities.” Zagajewski was one of the most vocal proponents of this poetic manifesto, as outlined in his collection of essays, Świat nie przedstawiony (Unrepresented World, 1974) and illustrated in his first collections of poetry, Komunikat (The Communiqué, 1972) and Sklepy mięsne (Meat Shops, 1975).

After immigrating to Paris, Zagajewski began to question his...