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
