What does it mean for a poet to be known mostly through translation? I am incapable of reading translations of poetry, so Milosz for me is a complete unknown. I don't know how someone who's never read him in the Polish can say that he comes through successfully into English. After all, there are at least two distinct possibilities: that Milosz is a masterful poet in Polish, and the reader of translation is losing a great deal (in the relatively flat versions I have seen). Or, Milosz in Polish is quite flat and uninteresting, and therefore the reader of translation is not missing anything!