Stanislaw Baranczak (pron. Staneeswaf Baranchak) (1946-2014) was a leading poet of the so-called “Generation ‘68” (Baranczak himself coined that phrase). 1968 was the time of the hippies and student demonstrations all over the world, but in Poland it was for many people the year of disillusionment. In March that year Polish students demonstrated against the communist censorship and restrictions at universities, while the government sent the riot police against them and imprisoned its leaders. For people like Baranczak (himself a student at the time) this was a shock. From early on the subject of his poetry is the confrontation between ordinary people and an oppressive government.
Baranczak became a lecturer at the University of Poznan, but in 1976 he joined the dissident movement and was sacked from his post. The dissident movement included the uncensored underground publishing movement, which was a new phenomenon, since then poets like Baranczak could write without taking censorship into account. Political allusions (present in Herbert’s early poetry) went out of the window, poets could write openly about the secret police entering a poetry meeting.
Although Baranczak lost his job at the University of Poznan, he was considered one of the world’s best scholars of Slavonic literature and was offered a post to teach this subject at Harvard University in Boston. In 1980 the Polish authorities allowed him t leave the country and Baranczak has lived in Boston ever since.
I knew him quite well when I lived in Poland. The country was under the Communist regime and we were both dissidents, I was a student and he was an university lecturer who lost his position because of his activities. He didn't stop giving lectures, the students organised meetings in private houses and Stanislaw carried on teaching in the underground.
At that time he was already a famous poet. I thought I might be a poet, too. One day I took what I thought were poems and asked Baranczak what he thought of them. He told me to leave them with him and come again a week later. When I did, he gave me the following advice:
“When you write a poem, read it again two weeks later and cross out all words that are not necessary.”
I went home and applied this procedure to my poems and they disappeared. This is how I did not become a poet. I am very grateful to Baranczak for this advice.
However, when I settled in England and was surrounded by all those books in English, including books of poetry, and I wondered how they might sound in my mother tongue. So I wrote them anew, in Polish. Years passed, at one point I realised that I had lived in England more than a half of my life. Then I started doing the same, but the other way around: writing in English what I knew in Polish. Naturally I tried to render in English what influenced me when I was younger. Poems by Baranczak were among those things.
The poem titled "With one breath" was one of the most influential poems of my generation in Poland, whereas "The evening of poetry reading" was an actual even at which I was also present, when the secret police entered, arrested all those present and detained them for 48 hours.
WITH ONE BREATH
With one breath, with one bracket of a breath closing a sentence
with one bracket of ribs around the heart
closing like a fist, like a net
around the narrow fish of breath, with one breath
to close all and to close oneself in all with
one thin slice of a flame shaved from lungs
to torch the walls of prisons and breathe in the fire
behind the bone bars of the chest, into the tower
of the windpipe, with one breath, before you choke
gagged with the thickening air
of the last breath of a man who is shot
and of the hot breath of gun barrels, and clouds
of steaming blood spilled on concrete
the air, which carries your voice
or muffles it, swallower of swords
the side arms, bloodless but bloodily
wounding the throat of brackets, between which
like a heart between ribs, like a fish in the net
flutters a sentence stammered with one breath
until the last breath
A SHOT BROUGHT ME DOWN TO EARTH
A shot brought me down to earth
a shot in a dark alley
a dark negation behind a shaken window pane
it got me, shot though, brought down when I was having high dreams
in an ant-like stampede, where all muscles agree
supported by the stirrup of loudly pumping blood
with the harness of tendons barely restraining
with the bridle of tongue in the mouth
it brought me down to earth
this gunshot with its dark, sober vowel of negation
my hand grabbed the throat shot through
the same fingers which
there, in the dark alley
held the neck of the rifle and
the same which grabbed the earth
into a fist very tight, as if they wanted the Earth
knead into a cobblestone and throw it at me
this shot through down the sleepy acceptance
of my body when it ran towards the greedy meadows
and, in each moment
shot through with a volley
of my own blood, which from veins' dark alleys
gushed impatiently, multiplied in light
I saw
myself as I fell on the tarmac with the throat shot through
with the bridle of the tongue turned into a gag
wet with the words written into my body
by a lead bullet
IF YOU HAVE TO SCREAM, DO IT QUIETLY
If you have to scream, do it quietly (walls
have
ears), if you have to love
turn the light off (your neighbour
has
binoculars), if you have to
live somewhere, don't close the door (the authorities
have
warrants), if you
have to suffer, do it in your own house (life
has
its rights), if
you have to live, limit yourself in everything (everything
has
its limits)
NOBODY WARNED ME
Nobody warned me that freedom may also mean something like
sitting at the police station with a rough book of my own poems
hidden (how clever it was) under my underwear
while five civilians with higher education
and still higher salary waste their time
analysing some rubbish taken from my pockets
tram tickets, a laundry receipt, a dirty
handkerchief and a mysterious (that's a good one) loose page:
„carrots
can of peas
tomato paste
potatoes”
and nobody warned me that captivity
may also mean something like
sitting at the police station with a roughbook of my own poems
hidden (how grotesque!) under my underwear
while five civilians with higher education
and even lower IQ are allowed
to touch the entrails torn out of my life
tram tickets, a laundry receipt, a dirty
handkerchief and even (no, I can't stand this one) this page:
„carrots
can of peas
tomato paste
potatoes”
and nobody warned me that the whole globe
is the space between these two opposite poles
between which really there is no space at all
EVENING OF POETRY
They came, because there are certain things and anyway it is your own fault, gentlemen.
They entered, because there are certain laws and I don't think you'd like us to break in.
They stopped the reading, because there are certain words and we we'll give you an advice..
They confiscated the poems, because there are certain limits and lets agree.
They checked everybody's documents, because there are certain regulations and you better don't stretch our patience.
They searched the flat, because there are certain rules and please calm down this child, madam.
They took with them certain people, because certain things have to be done and don't worry, your husband will be back in two days.
They didn't hit anybody, because there are certain forms and oh yes, you'd like it, wouldn't you, gents.
They didn't work too long, because there was certain film on the telly and after all we are humans too.
CLEAN HANDS
Fingers of a young officer of the Security Service
who in his office at the railway station looked through
drawings of Jan Lebenstein dug out from the depths of my luggage
and every so often looked at me with reproach
did not leave any marks on paper
Strange
Not that I would expect stains of blood, smudges of sweat, dirt
or even greasy fingerprints supposedly left on books
by the Great Teacher of Humanity, who liked to read while eating;
the work of the young officer of the Security Service
is clean
he himself has Masters degree in law
and habits of personal hygiene acquired at
his well bred
middle class family
However
it would be more natural if they left
in our poems, drawings, diaries and brains
perhaps just as a souvenir
their unique (fingerprint) sign
of the most meticulous conaisseurs of modern art
especially when they save it from annihilation with one reluctant sentence:
„O.K., you can keep this,
we don't have to confiscate it.”
If you would like to read these poems (and some more) on paper,
You can get a printout of my book "POLISH INSPIRATIONS"
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