My Poland Post, Part II

ADAM WIEDEMANN

18 pages of poetry

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MARZANNA KIELAR

Here are several English translations.

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PIOTR SOMMER

Here are two poems and an interview with Pitor Sommer (Chicago Review).

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MARTIN ŚWIETLICKI



5 poems translated into English

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MIRON BIALOSZEWSKI

And Even, Even If They Take Away the Stove (My Inexhaustible Ode to Joy)

I have a stove
similar to a triumphal arch!

They take away my stove
similar to a triumphal arch!!

Give me back my stove
similar to a triumphal arch!!!


They took it away.
What remains is
a grey
naked
hole.

And this is enough for me;
grey naked hole
grey naked hole.
greynakedhole.


(translated by Czeslaw Milosz; Postwar Polish Poetry)

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Mark Tardi is a Polish-American poet currently living in (the Polish city of) Łódź, where he is a Fulbright Lecturer. His book of poetry is called Euclid Shudders. Mark is currently working on translating Miron Bialoszewski (see Alissa Valles' post below) into English. He has graciously agreed to answer my questions about contemporary Polish poetry.

Which non-Polish poets are Polish poets reading these days?

O'Hara is really big here. He informs people like Sommer and Świetlicki obviously. Ashbery has also had influence. And Creeley. There's a kind of interest in voice & address that they pick up from O'Hara & Creeley (not so much Ashbery, who offers more in terms of the plasticity of language). There are different pockets of readers here.

Are there any specific trends you are seeing in Contemporary Polish Poetry (for the purposes of our class, we are defining contemporary as “written by a poet born after 1950.”)?

Trends. Yeah, sure. Poland is a country that is changing rapidly. Most of my students now never suffered Communism; the professors did. So this reflects in the writing: some want to grab onto tradition; others are diving into the new, playing with form. Wiedemann is a good example I think, though Bialoszewski opened a lot of doors.

Do you feel that the New European Poets selection is an accurate representation of What Is Happening in Polish Poetry Right Now? If you had been asked to edit this selection, who would you have picked?

The anthology has most of the people. I'd add some poets, but I don't know the landscape of Polish poetry exhaustively, so I wouldn't want to edit an anthology like that.

Anything else you think us punks in Tuscaloosa should know about Poland, Polish poetry, European poetry-in-general?

Poland...hmm. It's a wonderful place which I love deeply?

I simply can't imagine a Pole referring to her or himself as a "punk." Just not the same kind of generosity of humor or self-deprecation. With the language, Polish poetry has a lot more room for nuance. Being a case-based language, when you have 35 ways to say "my," context is more minute, wiry. There's a lot more nuts & bolts & hinges. And there's something I always notice about hearing it: how its so much in the front of the mouth, as if a language built on whispers and "psst." It communicates a different kind of emotional register.


P.S. One more thing. I've noticed in book stores that there are a lot of Murakami books. Like WAY more than you'd see in a typical American bookstore.

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