The collection of literary and critical works of one of the most influential Polish critics of the second half of the XX century, Jan Błoński, includes his texts of different years - from an essay written in 1949 about the first poetry collection by Tadeusz Ruzewicz to essays published in the Polish press of the early 2000s. However, one should not expect from this book a systematic presentation of the relatively recent history of Polish literature. Rather, the reader is offered a very personal, sometimes subjective, somewhat biased view of poetry, which was primarily a "space of love" for Błoński.

What, according to Błoński, determines the value of a poetic text? What is the vocation of verbal art after all the catastrophes of the XX century? Should it focus exclusively on "topical issues" or is its task to open the metaphysical horizon? Can the classical tradition coexist with an artistic breakthrough, an experiment in the field of language and form? Jan Błoński does not give an unambiguous answer, but calls the reader to be his interlocutor.