A Bilingual Anthology of Contemporary World Literature
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April 2016 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW of Mickiewicz’s masterpiece. The challenge of Pan Poland and whose recognition at home may also Tadeusz appears to be inexhaustible. be limited, especially in comparison with their famous predecessors or the poets who matured in the middle of the past century and have been City of Memory entered into the canon of not only Polish but A Bilingual Anthology of Contemporary world literature. Hence the first major challenge Polish Poetry to the author of the anthology: how to choose from a very crowded, ceaselessly growing field Edited and translated by Michael J. Mikoś. of names and their prolific output, in the absence Introduction by Andrzej Niewiadomski. of a general consensus which, in our time, is Bloomington, IN: Slavica Publishers, 2015. 227 seldom granted to the living artists. With his pages. ISBN 078-0-89357-444-4. commendable knowledge of the evolving panorama of Polish poetry, Mikoś could well follow his own advice––and, while mindful of Joanna Rostropowicz Clark critical opinions from a variety of aesthetic viewpoints, “[he] focused here,” in the words of he word “anthology” comes, of course, Andrzej Niewiadomski’s introduction, “not on T from the Greek and it means gathering of what is ostensibly the most effective or what the flowers. The meaning is particularly evocative poets themselves advanced to the fore, but rather when applied to anthologies of poetry: no Polish on a more private, intimate side of their work.” reader needs to be reminded of Julian Tuwim’s Private and intimate, it seems agreed, are key book of poems Polish Flowers (Kwiaty polskie) attributes that contrast the generation of poets or Juliusz Słowacki’s line “there every flower who did not experienced the Second Word War will tell Zosia poems” (tam każdy kwiatek powie and the worst postwar waves of communist wiersze Zosi). And Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du oppression from those who did and had been mal also come to mind. Michael J. Mikoś, a bound to give witness to the cataclysms suffered professor of foreign languages and linguistics at by the entire nation. The contrast––if not University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee has for between the historic background but between several decades cultivated his devotion to Polish individual poets of these consecutive poetry in several bilingual anthologies, generations––is perhaps more fluid than such indispensable for scholars and readers interested generalized distinctions. One would need in Poland’s literature but unable to read it in the extreme force to place, for example, Różewicz, original. They are: Polish Literature from the Herbert, Hartwig, and Szymborska, within the Middle Ages to the End of the Eighteenth same bracket. Similarily, the poets anthologized Cenury: A Bilingual Anthology; The Virgin in Mikoś’s City of Memory would bristle at any Mary’s Crown: A Bilingual Anthology of attempt to be affixed under a singular banner. Medieval Polish Marian Poetry; Polish Yet in reading them side by side a certan sense Romantic Literature: An Anthology; and Polish of their affinity to each other does emerge. “If Literature from 1864 to 1918: An Anthology. In we tried––in spite of everything,” Andrzej all these impressive volumes Mikoś provided his Niewiadomski writes, “to find a common ground own translations, a task that is both daring and for all of the newest Polish poetry, we would respectful and, high literary criteria aside, have to talk about a quest for creative freedom.” serving its significant purpose. He has continued And further: “It is a poetry of incessant in this outstanding project with yet another A astonishment and distanced analysis of changes Bilingual Anthology of Contemporary Polish (it is not an accident that the title of one Poetry, and it is a daunting effort. anthology published in Great Britain is translated as Altered State), and at the same time What makes this latest anthology different, at of escape to autonomous territories, from where least from the perspective of its readers in the more can be seen and where various, sometimes Polish diaspora, is that here Mikoś introduduces surprising, forms of sensitivity reign.” works by poets who are not yet known outside 1998 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW April 2016 Unfettered freedom from a call of variously Anglophone poetry, but are almost apocalyptic understood public duty apparently does set in their vision of life’s incomprehensibility and roadside traps. The twenty-one poets presented futility. Janusz Szuber is too well known to in City of Memory––the oldest, Janusz Szuber Polish and international readers to need a born in 1947, the youngest, Przemysław reminder of the wonders of his achievement, but Dakowicz, in 1977—seem to all be marked by a his poems included here offer little consolation sense of belateness, of living in time suddenly as we encounter The homeless under a viaduct bent, to borrow a metaphor from Wojciech on beds of newspapers (“David”), or Her later Bronowicz’s (b. 1967) “A Flying Hero.” In history is of a modest clerk / her only son’s poem after poem, their themes, their landscapes tuberculosis, life at the brink of poverty (“A appear almost uniformly bleak, their horizons One-Day Princess”). Yet the language of his devoid of hope. Turning pages, the reader’s eye dazzling attention to the minutiae of reality falls on the knives of streets that cut a city at provides uplifting counterpoint to notes of dusk opening to a vast space for dreams about despair. Marcin Świetlicki (b. 1961, Kościelskis dictatorship (Marcin Baran, “Before prize 1996) differs from the other poets here in Nighttime”); then, in two moving poems by also being an author of crime fiction and a Przemysław Dakowicz, on lines about his vocalist in popular rock groups. As a poet he has grandfather who as he falls in the hail of clay the reputation of a rebel: he is against the bricks / he will see/ units in iron helmets / primacy of political or ideological rhetoric at the marching east and west; and about his expense of purely personal expression. In his grandmothers, one with the diseased heart and notoriously polemical “Do Jana Polkowskiego“ swollen legs, the other with the diseased (not included here) he criticizes patriotic pathos backbone. In one of my favorite poems here, in the works of the older, highly acclaimed poet Mariusz Grzebalski (b. 1969) ends his Jan Polkowski (b. 1953, Kościelskis prize 1983), description of a thunderstorm (“August”) with who is represented in City of Memory by seven, the sadly ironic This tomato landing / is now our indeed deeply patriotic, anticommunist poems, whole reason for existence. Less ironic is his several of which contain tributes to Wierzyński, “Graffitti” about a boy who drowned on the Lechoń, Wat, and Wittlin. In Świetlicki’s lyrics way to church on Chrismas night. the voice of disaffection does sound more post- modern and playful, if Puddles full of whale oil For lack of space, not because they are less and blood (“Jonah”) could encourage exemplary, I cannot quote from all the poets in participation. Soon / mud will fall down is the this alphabetic array. Among them is Wojciech ending line of the short “The Beginning.” No Kudyba (b. 1965), affiliated with various less depressive is the voice of Eugeniusz Catholic academic institutions, whose poem Tkaczyszyn-Dycki (b. 1962) who has often been “Kowaniec” (Something that is silence / declared the most original and most Something that gives voice) I pick as a sublime recognizeable of the poets of the middle-aged rose to take home. I cannot resist Tomasz and young generations. Among other prestigious Różycki’s (b. 1970, Kościelskis prize 2004) awards, he won the Nike prize in 2009, and is “Vaterland” for its one line that should be the subject of many critical studies pointing to quoted in the original: gdzieś w lasach, wśród his sources in the borderline of Polish and szwargotów hożych cór Germanii / sowich Ukrainian culture, or to his affinity for Baroque okrzyków. All of his poems included here stand poetry and its motifs of “death, bones, coffin, out for their passionate irony and formal skeletons,” as listed by the critic Krzysztof playfulness, with references to old masters of Karasek. In volume after volume he returns to Polish––he also translates from the French–– the subject of his mother’s mental illness and poetry. The mood darkens as we move to “S,” death––a clearly defined (unlike elswhere in this “T,” and “W.” Andrzej Sosnowski (b. 1959) is a anthology) cause of trauma. A small sample of lecturer in American literature at Warsaw this magnificently funereal oeuvre in Mikoś’s University. His very original, somewhat selection testifies to the poet’s fame. confessional poems may be informed by modern 1999 April 2016 THE SARMATIAN REVIEW The only (why?) woman included, Marzanna and has been the role of theater in sustaining or Kielar (b. 1963) teaches philosophy at the interrogating Polish identity? Given the hoary Department of Education of Christian maxim that all Polish plays are about Poland, Theological Academy in Warsaw, and is the readers of these translations may fruitfully author of five volumes of poetry for which she ponder what these plays might say to audiences received numerous prizes (Kościelskis 1993) in Poland. However, plays are written to be and critical accolades. On the Polish culture staged, and that raises a different set of portal she is credited with acceptance of considerations. existence, tenderness toward the world, and love The number of productions on American for those worthy of love. In the garden of one of professional theater stages of foreign plays in her untitled poems here you can see smoke, translation has declined precipitously over the Father bustling around / rake in hand.