Born in Warsaw he left Poland during the war, settling eventually in England, where he studied English Literature and Philosophy at London, Sussex and Oxford. His Selected Poems 1953-1978 appeared in Poland in 1982. The translator of volumes by Norwid, Rozewicz, Staff, Stoinski and Szymborska, he is also the author of The Burning Forest (Bloodaxe, 1988), translations of seventeen Polish poets.