Some more polish poetry - Halina Poświatowska

Halina Poświatowska

1956 marked a significant political as well as cultural transition: after a period of social realism, Polish poetry spoke with a full voice and showed incredible richness. What began to matter was imagination, the courage to express oneself, irony, distance and personality. The debut of Halina Poświatowska Idol Worship in 1958 was one indicator of this transition. Her choice of the free verse, addressing directly the subject of love and the existential reflection placed Poświatowska within the mainstream of Polish poetry.

Poświatowska is primarily a poet of love.

For the first time in Polish literature a woman wrote so openly about erotic desires and admitted her own sensuality.

She could not forget though that her life was under threat. She perceived death with calm but even more so she wanted to live to the fullest.

Until today for many readers there remains an unresolved puzzle to Poświatowska's life: why did she not give up being active, why did she travel, and love, although doctors recommended that she avoid emotions and maintain peace and moderation? If one understands her poetry though, and especially discovers the relationship that exists between love and death, the puzzle will cease to intrigue. Intense feelings, joy, compassion and the torments of love are the opposites of the total calmness which death brings. There is no attempt in her poetry to reach out with hope beyond the end of life.

A great role is played by the metaphor, imagination and emotions. The poet perceived the whole world in a sensual way: even the sun, the breezes, flowers and animals, all bring about erotic associations. Sometimes we can see a particular cult of her own beauty. A poem becomes a mirror in which a delicate slim figure is reflected to indicate both gracefulness and the existential threat.

Despite the passing of time Poświatowska is not forgotten by the readers. It is as if Poświatowska's charm could be sensed through her poems and acquired a special appeal. Perhaps she enchants with her feminine charm but at the same time she impresses with her existential courage.

  

Whenever, when I want to live I scream

Whenever, when I want to live I scream

When live leaves me

I cling to him

Saying – life

Do not go yet

His warm hand inside my hand

My lips beside his ear

Whisper

Life

As if the life was a lover

Who wants to leave?

I cling to his neck

Scream

I die if you leave 

Halina Poświatowska 

Polish poetry

Translation JES

I’m Juliet

I'm Juliet

I am 23

I once touched love


it had the bitter taste


of black coffee


it quickened


my heartbeat


crazed


my living body


rocked my senses

it left

I'm Juliet


high up on a balcony


suspended


I cry come back


I call come back


biting my lips


I draw blood

it hasn't come back

I'm Juliet


a thousand years old


alive

I look for you

I look for you in the cat's soft fur

in raindrops

in a picket fence

and, leaning on the kind fencepost,

obscured by sunlight

— a fly in a spider's web —

I wait...

On a dust-covered road I search for your lips.

I bend over and look under each moss-wrapped stone.

coiled into spirals snails sleep in moist shade.

I wake them and ask where is he? they stretch out their drowsy

horns peek from their shells squint at the sun.

and vanish saying nothing. I ask the stone smooth

its rough surface with my warm hungry hand. it's silent.

I ask the sun. it bends its head to the west and I go

after the sun westward to find you.

I like longing

climbing up the railings of sound and color

catching into my open mouth

the frozen scent

I like my loneliness

suspended higher

than a bridge

embracing the sky with its arms

and my love

walking barefoot

over the snow

A splinter of my imagination

sometimes flares up from a word

and sometimes from the smell of salt

and I feel under me

the ship shift from foot to foot

and the ocean is immeasurable

without any shore

secure in a shell of wood

I am wonderfully free

I love no one

and nothing

He said — he loved he said

now I live

in his smile

and trace

the shape of hips

as narrow

as the trunk of the young spruce

whose grace

I praised last night

before he

sowed singing desire

in my dancing hands

in my feet standing on tiptoe

in my teeth

I long

in great pensiveness

resting my chin on my hand

I think — about the skin

whose tart and

golden taste

I recollect

Passion is

what the violin sang about

enclosed in its dark case

airless

like the night

within the shell of light

marked by the nails of stars

it lives

in your words of warm pomegranate

it smells of peach

and sunshine

caught in the green net of a tree

ripe

bent over faded grass

it leans

towards my open hands

while I — my mouth closed

in a foreign tongue teach

the word — confined like death

love

I can't say with a word

not with a word do I yearn

but with my arms

embracing space

but with blood

overflowing my arms

you are in my heartbeat

echoing itself

returning to itself

remembering forever

in me you rise

most deeply

and each breath

which freezes solid in the cold

reminds me that you are

that again you have left me

Stock taking

Kisses will go on sale

breathless kisses

embraces will be discounted

and the waiting day after day

and the waiting day after day

for night

for dawn

for bread

for pain

for hunger

for sun

for rain

for heaven

for... nothing

so many days

nights

forged into a chain of moments

on which

the remarkably subdued

tamed womanhood

will be led to the block...

You live but for a while

and time —

is a transparent pearl

filled with breath

and furniture is sharp-edged

and flesh — delicate

and the earth — flat all over

and heaven — inaccessible

love is a word

brain — a metal box

wound up everyday

with the silver key of illusion

of curiosity to learn

of thirst to know

of desire to shine

of stubbornness to exist

and pity is a frail flower

a delicate flower

which blossoms in dreams sometimes

I would like to see you once again

once again

at nightfall

I would like to live another life

or maybe even two

so I could see you

and that pain

which carried me out

onto the white-hot sand

and the rain of that stormy April and her, panting

faithfully following

in my every step

turning my head at the corners

I scream

that she dare not come without you

Reflection after London riots

After the riots in London I was wondering where the kids found the inspiration and motivation to study and I came across this incredible story.

The Freedom Writer’s Diary chronicles the four years of Erin Gruel’s teaching experiences at Wilson High School in Long Beach, CA in the mid 1990s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_Writers

As a first year teacher, Erin was given the hard to teach, the kids who were“at-risk” and “most likely to drop out ”. Through a series of unconventional methods, such as field trips to Holocaust museums and dinners at fancy restaurants she stimulates and reaches out to these teens.

She took on two extra jobs in order to pay for school books and field trips that her school administrators would not fund. She faced opposition from her colleagues who did not value her eagerness and teaching efforts.

Erin encouraged third students to keep a diary and to communicate within the dairy in the way they want.

Some wrote poetry, some drew pictures, and others wrote incredibly detailed accounts of their lives. The diary entries are anonymous, but intensely detail the lives of teens from abusive households, living in fear and in shame of their parents, their neighbours, and their friends. We see these teens deal with sexual, physical and mental abuse. Each day is a struggle to keep going, and make an effort to stay motivated.

It is through these journals and through room 203 that many students find unexpected support. We see these teens grow and change in the course of these four years thanks to the writings of those such as Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl, Zlata’s Diary: A Child’s Life in Wartime Sarajevo and Durango Street.

Erin Gruwell went out of her way to learn about her students, and writings that these kids could relate to. She showed these kids that hope exists and as well as their future as long as they strive for the best. We see these kids go from cutting class, to graduation day and going on to major universities. We see the change that Ms. G and the Freedom Writers had on the world around them, bringing Zlata and Miep Gies to their school through fundraising events and emotionally driven, but still well written letters.

I wonder what the moral of the story is for us and in some way we could relate the situation of those kids to the London riots.

The following film quote came to mind,, We will stay in a dark room until someone will come and turn the light, or we decide to learn how to switch off the light by yourself’’"until someone comes and turns on. What I think important is to believe and is that what Erin Gruwell did?

She believed in those kids and that something could change no matter what.

I wish that everybody were inspired to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Some more poetry, Jan Twardowski

Let Us Hurry

Let us love people now they leave us so fast

the shoes remain empty and the phone rings on

what's unimportant drags on like a cow

the meaningful sudden takes us by surprise

the silence that follows so normal it's hideous

like chastity born most simply from despair

when we think of someone who's been taken from us.

Don't be sure you have time for there's no assurance

as all good fortune security deadens the senses

it comes simultaneously like pathos and humor

like two passions not as strong as one

they leave fast grow silent like a thrush in July

like a sound somewhat clumsy or a polite bow

to truly see they close their eyes

though to be born is more of risk than to die

we love still too little and always too late.

Don't write of it too often but write once and for all

and you'll become like ddelphine both gentle and strong.

Let us love people now they leave us so fast

and the ones who don't leave won't always return

and you never know while speaking of love

if the first one is last or the last one first.

Someone famous said, ‘’Sometimes you got to stop and remember that your not going to live forever. Be young, think smart, stay true and just follow your heart’’.

Jan Twardowski in this poem raises essential subject of transience of human life. 

We observe death from perspective of peoples, who bid farewell someone they loved once, where the beloved is only a pair of shoes and whole bunch of memories. 

We could see the tragic struggle of those who were with an intense sadness and pain.

At the same time the poem contain a message to the readers to reflect on their own life. The moving is the author’s appeal "Let us hurry to love people so quickly away.” 

We start to think; if we express enough tenderness to people close to us and people around us and then we reach the conclusion, that in the world ruled by power, money and politics people rarely show sensitivity. One day may be too late and we would regret that so many words left unspoken and the person to whom they were addressed not hear them anymore as, we still love too little and always too late’’

Also we could assumed that the morals uttered in a poem could refer then the relationship between two peoples, when too late exposed feelings lead to separation and sorrow for the lost love, "and never known to speak of love is the last or first or last first. "

I would like to know what is your interpretation of that poem? 

Cultural Poland

I am a Pole living in United Kingdom. I am not really typical polish, I have more international friends then polish friends ever had, I have latin temper, I am always cold and do not really like polish food, but I really like to promote polish culture, art, poetry, literature, music. 

http://www.polishculture.org.uk/

http://www.culture.pl/web/English/cppp

I have experienced that people around me know so little about Polish Culture so I decided to translate for them some polish poems, literature and share the information about polish film, music, history, politics.

Additionally, I am a European Union enthusiast and Poland presently holds a presidency of EU.

http://pl2011.eu/en