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[goneahead]

Second Stop - Poland



Mention Polish poetry and people will usually give you a quizzical look. That's a shame, because Poland is a nation of poets - in fact Poland has had two well known poets that have won the Nobel Prize (Czesław Miłosz and Wislawa Szymborska).

16th MAY 1973
~Wislawa Szymborska, trans. Adam Czerniawski

One of those many dates
that no longer tell me anything.

Where did I go on that day,
what was I doing - I don't know.

If someone committed a crime
- I would be lost for an alibi.

The sun shone and set
but I didn't notice.

I have no diary note
of the Earth's rotation.

Would have been easier to think
I had briefly died
than remembered nothing,
though I lived without a break.

Assuredly, I wasn't a spirit,
I breathed, I ate,
my steps were audible
and there must be
traces of my fingers on door-handles.

My reflections were mirrored.
I wore something that had a colour.
One or two people must have seen me.

Perhaps that day
I found something I had lost earlier.
Or lost something I found later.

I was full of feelings and impressions.
Now it's all
like dots in brackets.

Where was I shrouded,
where did I hide -
it's rather a clever trick
to vanish from one's own eyes.

I shake memory -
will something slumbering for years
start rustling
from its branches.

No.
Manifestly I demand too much -
no less than one second.

---

Untitled
~Rafal Wojaczek , trans. Wlodek Fenrych

I live without seeing stars
I speak without understanding words
I wait without counting days

until someone breaks throught this wall

---

Untitled
~Marzanna Bogumila Kielar trans. Wlodek Fenrych

1.

the silence of dawn cuts to the bone, wait
until at least wind returns and clouds gather the soot, until
some light blows in through cracks;

until at least a spoon resting on a saucer flashes or
papers and sheets lying in disorder catch light and
fire seizes the dry wood of uncovered objects.

2.
light torn to strips supports trees, steaming
are bowels of waters, it dawns. The sun is only a crack
in an iron cauldron of fire.

---

On the day the world ends
Czeslaw Milosz, trans. by Anthony Milosz

On the day the world ends
A bee circles a clover,
A fisherman mends a glimmering net.
Happy porpoises jump in the sea,
By the rainspout young sparrows are playing
And the snake is gold-skinned as it should always be.

On the day the world ends
Women walk through the fields under their umbrellas,
A drunkard grows sleepy at the edge of a lawn,
Vegetable peddlers shout in the street
And a yellow-sailed boat comes nearer the island,
The voice of a violin lasts in the air
And leads into a starry night.

And those who expected lightning and thunder
Are disappointed.
And those who expected signs and archangels' trumps
Do not believe it is happening now.
As long as the sun and the moon are above,
As long as the bumblebee visits a rose,
As long as rosy infants are born
No one believes it is happening now.

Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet
Yet is not a prophet, for he's much too busy,
Repeats while he binds his tomatoes:
No other end of the world will there be,
No other end of the world will there be.

If you are looking for more Polish poetry, here are a few links:

Czeslaw Milosz

Wislawa Szymborska

There is also a fairly extensive list of Polish poetry here:

Polish Poetry

It should also be noted that Milosz was the editor for one of the best (IMHO) international poetry anthologies out there:

A Book of Luminous Things

Comments

[meeks]

I've noticed that in both this and your previous post on Korean poetry, that you've only posted poems in translation. That's helpful, and I do appreciate having them in a language I can read, but it also makes me wonder what they're like in the original! Out of curiosity, do you read poetry in languages other than English? Have you found that certain languages are especially well (or poorly) suited to particular poetry forms?

[goneahead]

unfortunately, the only language I really know is those Chicano words you can't say in polite company!

thanks largely to the internet, international poetry is becoming more popular and there is starting to be a push to have a translation, next to the original poem, next to a literal translation. Most publishers are very resistant - probably because of the extra printing costs.

One other thing about when you read translations of world poetry is understanding the culture and their metaphors. For example, ducks are just ducks to us. To Asians, ducks are believed to be monogamous, so when a duck swims through a poem, there's probably an underlying theme about some guy being unfaithful to some girl.

I think learning and figuring this stuff is one of the fun parts of reading world poetry, but then I am a poetry geek!