Ryszard Krynicki (poetry from Poland cycle)

 

When I lived in Poznan, in the communist Poland, Ryszard Krynicki was one of the dissidents there. He was a friend of Stanislaw Baranczak, who also lived there at the time. Once Baranczak wrote a poem about an underground poetry reading where police entered and arrested everybody; Krynicki had similar underground readings although the police did not enter those meetings (I know because I was there too). His poetry, though, is very different from Baranczak's, very short poems, almost haiku-like, but his haikus are not about whether or nature. Instead they are observations that show absurdity of certain reactions that most people would consider normal. Most of them, unlike haikus, have titles. Some of those poems seem to have a kind of transcendental dimension to them.

Below are the poems that made such impression on me that I decided to write their English versions. In fact the first poem here, the one without a title, I remembered all my life (I saw it first in 1970s, soon after it was published) and recalled it whenever I had a difficult decision to make. It did help. 

* * *

Who chooses loneliness – will never be alone

Who chooses homelessness – will have the roof of the world over his head

Who chooses death – will not cease to live

Who is chosen by death – will die

only this

WHO DOES NOT EXIST

fear God

who does not exist

in your heart

HOW TO WRITE?

To write so that the hungry

think it is bread?

The hungry have to be fed,

you have to write so that the hunger

is not wasted

NOT ALL

Do we really learn to live only after the defeat?

Not all: whoever does not live for victory

cannot live in defeat

YOU HAVE TO BE

You have to be free

to learn

from your own mistakes

WHEN

When a clown gets to power

he is no less ridiculous

but who wants to laugh then?

SAYING

Saying – How can I fight

for human rights

when I have a wife and children?

you yourself pronounce a sentence on them

but even the executioners do not know

how severe the punishment will be

UNFORTUNATELY

Bad poems won't convert a despot

unfortunately this can also be sait

about good poems

VERTIGO

Those in power are afraid of hights

The higher they climb

the more afraid they are to come down to earth

INSIDE

Look, the real light

a stained glass window has only

inside the church

* * *

Blind? Deaf? Mute?

Incomprehensible?

It is there. It hurts.

AMONG THEM, IN THE CENTRE

Twelve men at the table set for destinies; by now they know that one of them will betray him and another will betray him thrice (or twice, it won't be clear till the end) before the cock crows. With them, in their midst, at the centre of his own infinite oneness, he – their master and teacher. He, the one beyond numbers. The son of the unutterable Name. The Son of Man. Having just finished breaking the unleavened bread for the last time ever, he lifts a cup of wine. His face is hidden to us. His hair anointed with precious oil shines with unearthly light. His few words reach us only in translations. Laborious translations, constantly improved, so many wars have been fought and we still don't know how faithful the translations are.

If you would like to read these poems (and some more) on paper, 

You can get a printout of my book "POLISH INSPIRATIONS"

Tadeusz Rozewicz, the third pillar (poetry from Poland cycle)

Some people consider the triad Milosz-Herbert-Rozewicz the three pillars of Polish poetry of the 20th century. Certainly in my case reading Rozewicz (when I was a teenager) was a crucial experience. Only after this I became interested in poetry at all.

Tadeusz Rozewicz (pron. Tadewoosh Roozhevich) (1921 - 2014) was born in a small town in central Poland. During the war he was a member of the underground resistance army fighting the Nazis. After the war he studied History of Art, but never finished it. He was one of the first post-war poets to write in an open verse. Reflected in those poems is the terror of war, but never despair. For some reason his poems were published before 1956, during the Stalinist era, even though Rozewicz in his poetry never praised socialism or Stalin. Thus for a reader living in the country it would appear that Rozewicz was the first important poet to write in a modern style. In the hindsight we know that at the same time Herbert wrote no less modern poems, but didn’t publish them, whereas Czeslaw Milosz published his poetry abroad.

Here are some of my attempts of recreating in English those poems that moved me when I was a teenager.

TWO AXES

when my father had

his 77th birthday

he said to me:

„two axes, my son,

you pass two axes

and afterwards

everything is easy”

we drank half a litre of vodka

my father unhurriedly

lit a cigarette

and started blowing

wheels of smoke

one wheel

after another

they flew to the ceiling

grew and dissolved

I remember one question

from that birthday talk:

"Tell me, dad,

is life worth living?”

my father watched

the wheels of smoke

shook the ash from the cigarette

and said:

"Of course it is”

and then he looked at me

"What's wrong with you, son?”

Then I understood

that our father loved us

he just never talked about it

GOLDEN MOUNTAINS

The first time

I saw mountains

was when I was

twenty six years of age

I didn't laugh

didn't shout

in their presence

I spoke in whisper

When I returned home

I went to tell

my mother

what mountains look like

It was difficult to tell

at night

everything looks different

mountains and words

mother was silent

maybe she was tired

and fell asleep

in the clouds

the Moon grew

the golden mountain

of poor people

* * *

Assisi the nest

on a cracked rock

bird's white

egg

I carried

this landscape

that was turning pink

to my

city

I didn't make it

on the third day

your smile

started to go off

I gave you to the earth

the river of forgetting

flows

onto eyes lips

onto your feet

shod in slippers

made of paper

BUT WHOEVER SEES...

But whoever sees my mother

in a livid frock, in a white hospital ward

who shakes

who stiffens

with a wooden smile

with white gums

who for fifty years had faith

but now cries and says:

„I don't know... I don't know...”

her face is like huge dim tear drop

she folds her yellow hands like a frightened

girl

her lips are navy blue

but whoever sees my mother

a little cornered creature

with a staring eye

he

well, I would like to carry her in my heart

and feed with sweetness

DEAD FRUIT

There are golden pears on a plate

Flowers and two young damsels

A photo of a boy on the table

Beaming and at attention in a black kepi

The damsels have soft lips

the damsels have sweet eyes

The poor mother walks across the room

She straightens the photo and weeps

Golden suns on the table fade

And so does the dead fruit of her womb

If you would like to read these poems (and some more) on paper, 

You can get a printout of my book "POLISH INSPIRATIONS"

Is Czeslaw Milosz the greatest Polish poet? (poetry from Poland cycle)

Growing up in Poland in 1960s and 1970s and being interested in poetry I came across all the great names, including Zbigniew Herbert, but I never heard of Milosz. Then one day in 1977 I was invited to go to a poetry reading of "the greatest living Polish poet". I somehow assumed it would be Herbert. At the evening I heard two well known Polish actors reciting poems that were definitely not Herbert's, I knew his style well enough to realise that, but I couldn't recognise who it was. However, I had to agree - this was the best poetry I had heard so far. Only later I learned this was Czeslaw Milosz, a poet banned in Poland, which is why I had never heard of him. It all changed in 1980, when Milosz received the Nobel prize. Then he suddenly was published in his own country and became a national hero.

Czeslaw Milosz was born in Lithuania and would consider himself to be a Polish-speaking Lithuanian. Born when Lithuania was a part of the Russian Empire, he travelled around with his father – an engineer – and grew up bilingual, speaking Polish at home and Russian elsewhere. After the Soviet Revolution the family returned home. Poland has just regained its independence. So did Lithuania, but the Lithuanian nationalists wanted to eradicate the Polish language there, so the Polish-speaking part of the country (including the city of Vilnius) chose to join Poland rather than Lithuania. Milosz grew up in Vilnius, went to the university there and there published his first poems. During the Nazi occupation he lived in Warsaw, where he took part in the underground publishing movement. After the war at first he supported the new regime, but soon he was disillusioned and emigrated – first to France, later to the USA. For many years he taught Slavonic Literatures at the University of Berkeley in California. After the end of the communist rule Milosz returned to Poland and died in Cracow.

In the communist Poland his works were banned, the censors wouldn’t even let his name be mentioned. Some of the Polish anti-communist exiles wouldn’t accept him either because of his support for the regime during the first years after the war. Nevertheless he gained international recognition and in 1980 received the Nobel Prize. Everything changed after that – it was impossible to ignore him in Poland and the traditional exiles had to accept his great talent. After the end of communism in Poland he was treated as a national prophet.

During his life Milosz witnessed the indescribable inhumanity of the Nazi occupation, including the destruction of the Warsaw Jewish Ghetto. He has consciously decided that his poetry will not reflect desperation, widespread in those years. There is enough evil, poetry should bring hope – this is what he tried to do all his life.

His poetry is often compared with that of Zbigniew Herbert, whom Milosz himself promoted in the English speaking world and whom some people consider even greater. I myself consider this competition "who is the greatest" a futile activity. I see most of all one big difference between them: where Herbert uses metaphor in his poems, Milosz uses metonymy most often. This is why I had no doubt the poems weren't Herbert's when I heard them for the first time.

Milosz himself translated his own poems into English (in collaboration with Robert Hass) and his translations are easily available. I, however, had audacity to write some of the poems in English again (so to speak), having been inspired by the Polish versions I read. Here they are:

MEDITATION

It is quite possible, O Lord, that people were wrong when they praised You.

You weren't the prince on a throne, to whom prayers and smoke of frankincense raise from the earth

The throne they imagined was empty and you smiled bitterly

When you saw them turning to you with hope

That you will save their crop from hail, their bodies from disease

That you will save them from pestilence, fire, famine war.

The traveller staying by the invisible waters

You kept alight the tiny flame in the surrounding darkness.

By that fire, deep in thoughts, you shook your head.

You really wanted to help them, glad whenever you could.

Full of sympathy, you forgave their mistake,

Their deceit, of which they were aware, though they pretended they didn't see it.

Even the ugliness, when they gathered in their churches.

My heart is filled with awe, O Lord, I want to talk to you,

Because I think you understand me, despite my contradictions.

I think I know now what it means to love people

And why loneliness, pity and anger are barriers to love.

It is enough to ponder about one life persistently and forcefully.

Of – for example – one woman, which is what I am doing now,

And a multitude of those weak creatures will manifest itself.

They can be just and patient till the end.

What more can I do, O Lord, but to remember it all

And bow before you in deep supplication

Imploring because for their heroism: admit us to Your glory.

BELATED MATURITY

Belatedly, when I am nearly ninety, the door inside me opened

and I entered the brightness of dawn.

I saw my earlier lives float away, like ships

One after another, together with their suffering.

Countries, cities, gardens, sea bays, they all suddenly appeared

Assigned to my pen, so I could describe them better than before.

I was not separated from the people, sadness and sympathy formed the bond between us

I said: We have forgotten thet we all are the children of the King.

Because we come from where the difference between yes and no doesn't exist

Or the difference between is, was and will be.

Woe to us, because we use less than a hundredth

Of the gift given to us for our long journey.

Moments of yesterday and of centuries gone: a strike of a sword,

Making up eyelashes before a mirror of polished metal,

Deadly shot of a musket, a sailing ship hitting a reef -

They all live in us and wiil have to be completed.

I always knew I would be a worker in a vinyard,

Just like all people living in my time,

Wheather they are aware of it on not.

IN CRACOW

On the border between this and the other world, in Cracow

Patter patter on worn floors of churches

One generation after another. There I understood

Something of the customs of my sisters and brothers.

Nakedness of a woman meets nakedness of a man

And completes itself with the other half

Corporal, or maybe divine.

It probably is the same,

As „Song of Solomon” tells us.

Isn't it true that everyone must hug the Ever Living?

His fragrance of apples, saffron, cinnamon, cloves, frankincense

Him, who is and who will come

With the light of the wax candles?

He, divisible, separate for everyone

Accepts him and her in an oblate, in their own flame.

They cover the light with the fabric of their misty velvet garments

They wear masks of silk, porcelain, brass and silver,

So the faces, which are common, wouldn't get mixed up.

Their graves will be adorned with crosses of marble.

If you would like to read these poems (and some more) on paper, 

You can get a printout of my book "POLISH INSPIRATIONS"

Why Zbigniew Herbert did not receive a Nobel Prize? (poetry from Poland cycle)

When Czeslaw Milosz received his Nobel Prize for literature in 1980, some people asked this question. Why indeed? Isn't Herbert a better poet after all?

Zbigniew Herbert was a poet who didn't want to cooperate with communists and in 1950s, when many poets wrote poems praising socialism because they wanted to be published, Herbert refused and only circulated his poems among friends. Only after the liberalisation of 1956 his poems were published. There were more poets who made their début in that year, they were called "Generation 56" and Herbert was considered the best of them. He was discovered by Czeslaw Milosz, who was also a poet and who at the time was teaching at the University of Berkeley in California. Milosz translated Herbert's poems and published them in America. Some say Milosz only became known because of his translations of Herbert's poems. Others clearly have a different opinion as it was Milosz who in the end received the Nobel Prize.

The two poets were for some time very friendly but later Herbert started attacking everyone who had any involvement with the communist regime. That included Czeslaw Milosz, who for a brief period after the war worked for the Polish embassy in Paris. Later Milosz became known as the author of books like "The Captive Mind", which analyses writers seduced by communism, but for Herbert this was clearly not enough.

The best known poems of Herbert are those in the cycle of Mr. Cogito, published in 1970s, but for some people (me included) his earlier poems have more charm, which their magical rhythm only amplifies. Here are three poems written in English on inspiration by Zbigniew Herbert.

TAMARISK

I was telling about battles

battlements and warships

the slaughtered heroes

the sloughtering heroes

but I forgot about this one

I was telling about a sea storm

about walls crumbling down

about cornfields aflame

hills toppled over

but I forgot about the tamarisk

when he lies

pierced by a lance

and the mouth of his wound

closes

he does not see

either the sea

or the town

or the friend

he sees

just next to his face

a tamarisk

he climbs

onto the highest

dry twig of the tamarisk

and going around

brown and green leaves

he tries

to fly to heaven

without wings

without blood

without thoughts

without...

THE PRIEST

The priest whose deity

descended to earth

in a broken up temple

showed the human face

the helples priest

who raising his arms

knows that it won't bring rain or locust

neither good harvest nor hailstorm

- I repeat the same verse

with the same intonation

of awe

the neck ready for martyrdom

is struck by a flat hand of a mocker

my holy dance before the altar

is only seen by a shadow

that moves like a street urchin

- nevertheless

I raise my arms and eyes

I raise my song

and I know that the incense of my offering

that drills into a cold sky

plaits a plait to a deity

who has no head

REPORT FROM HEAVEN

In heaven the work week is 30 hours long

The wages are higher, prices always go down

The physical work doesn't make you feel tired (because the gravitational force is not so strong)

Chopping wood is just like typewriting

The social order is stable and the government wise

Really the life in heaven is better than in any other country.

In the beginning it was supposed to be different -

The circles of light, choirs and degrees of abstraction.

However, the separation of the soul from the body

Was not entirely successful and the soul was arriving here

With a drop of fat attached, or a thread of muscle.

Conclusions had to be drawn

A grain of the absolute was mixed with a grain of clay.

One more deviation from the doctrine; it will be the last.

Only John foresaw this – you'll be resurrected in body.

Only a few see God.

He is only for those of pure pneuma.

The rest listens to official messages about miracles and floods.

In time all will see God,

Although nobody knows when this is going to happen.

So far on Saturday at noon

The sirens sound sweetly

And the heavenly proletariat leave their factories

Clumsily carrying their wings under their arm, like violins.

If you would like to read these poems (and some more) on paper, 

You can get a printout of my book "POLISH INSPIRATIONS"

Why is Papusza considered a Polish poet? (poetry from Poland cycle)

She never wrote in Polish, only in her native Gypsy language. Even today the Polish Gypsies speak Polish with a clear foreign accent and very likely this was her case as well.  Why is she considered a Polish poet?

Papusza was born probably in 1909 among the Polska Roma tribe of Gypsies. The date is only probable as she was born among wandering Gypsies who didn’t bother with birth certificates. Polska Roma are the Gypsies who since the Middle ages have wandered within the boundaries of the Kingdom of Poland. The old Polish Kingdom was a multicultural society where the Polish culture was dominant, so the Polish Gypsies tended to be bilingual in Romany and Polish. During the Second World War the Nazis wanted to exterminate all “alien races”, which included Jews and Gypsies. The Gypsies could hide in the woods easier than the Jews, but in the Eastern part of Poland (now Ukraine) there was another problem – the Ukrainian extreme nationalists, who were allied with the Nazis. Their goal was to exterminate all Polish speakers in their area and so they also targeted the Polish speaking Gypsies. Papusza’s band during the war stayed in Volynia (now Ukraine) and had to hide both from the Nazis and from the Ukrainian extremists. After the war the Polska Roma Gypsies moved with the boundaries and Papusza’s band left Volynia for what is now Western Poland, but was Germany before the war.

Just after the war a young Gorgio (non-Gypsy) who was fascinated by the Gypsy life joined her band and travelled with them for some time. He was a young and aspiring poet Jerzy Ficowski. He was charmed by the songs of this young girl and translated them into Polish. The translations came to attention of Julian Tuwim, who at that time was considered the best living Polish poet. Thanks to Tuwim’s influence Papusza’s first book of poems appeared in 1951.

As it happens Papusza was unusual among the Gypsies of her time – she could actually read her book. It was not usual among the Gypsies in the 1920s to send children to school and Papusza said she taught herself to read by asking Polish schoolchildren to explain her the meaning of letters. She read a lot and was fully aware of what it meant to have a book published and to have as a friend someone like Tuwim. Other Gypsies, however, did not necessarily appreciate this and here her problems started.

Jerzy Ficowski was fascinated by the Gypsies and wrote a book about them. This was the time when the Polish government tried to persuade the Gypsies to settle (the communist authorities did not like a wandering people who were difficult to control). In the early sixties the government forcibly settled all the Gypsy bands. Some Gypsy people connected this to the book written by Ficowski. And who was his chief informant? Papusza! The girl who could read Polish and who herself had a book published. To add insult to injury Ficowski also published a Polish-Gypsy dictionary! Sacrilege! Papusza was declared a traitor and excluded from the Gypsy community.

Gypsies usually outwardly profess the religion of their country but apart from that they have their own system of values and taboos. Or one should rather say they have a system of values different from that of Gorgios. It is not considered wrong to take somebody else’s property, certainly not it the owner is a Gorgio. A Gypsy would think nothing of pinching a chicken from somebody’s yard for dinner (or – as Papusza said she had done – to pay with it for reading lessons), but the betrayal of “Gypsy secrets” – such as the language – is an offence of the highest order. Gypsies also have a kind of a chief, called “baroshero” (literally “bighead”) who acts as a judge in matters of Gypsy law. The baroshero of Polska Roma decided that Papusza should be excluded from the Gypsy community.

Papusza’s band settled in the 1960s in Gorzów in Western Poland. This is where Papusza lived with her husband Dionizy Wajs. Since the problems with the Gypsy elders started she had serious psychological problems and had to spend some time in an asylum. At the end of her life she moved to Inowroclaw in Central Poland, where she died in 1987.

Her real name was Bronislawa Wajs.

As often happens – her work grew in popularity after her death. The younger generation of Gypsies – who would have gone to school – is not likely to condemn her any more. The younger generation is more likely to be proud of the Gypsy poet who gained fame among Gorgios.

Her name should be pronounced Papooshah (Broneeswavah Vice)

The name of her translator into Polish is pronounced Yezhy Feetsofskee.

O DEEP DARK FOREST (Vesho dadoro mio)

O deep dark forest

You are my father, I know.

You brought me up,

Later you left me.

Your leaves tremble

And I tremble, too.

You sing and I sing.

You laugh and I laugh.

You have never forgotten

And I remember, too.

Dear God, where shall I go?

What shall I do, where shall I find

Fables and songs?

I don’t go to the forest any more.

I don’t go to the meetings with the river.

O deep dark forest

You are my father

I know.

WATER THAT ALWAYS WANDERS

Long gone are the times

When Gypsies wandered around,

But I still see them.

They are like running water

Always running away.

You can only guess

What she would like to say.

Poor water has no speech

With which she could talk or sing,

Only sometimes she whispers

A silver splash like a heartbeat.

A heartbeat of speaking water.

Only a horse on a meadow

Not far from the stables

Hears her and understands.

Water looks not at the horse,

Always running away.

No eyes could ever pin down

Water that always wanders.

If you would like to read these poems (and some more) on paper, 

You can get a printout of my book "POLISH INSPIRATIONS"