The collected works – including some previously unpublished – of the Polish Nobel Prize winner
The collected works – including some previously unpublished – of the Polish Nobel Prize winner
(For excerpt in Spanish, please, scroll down)
* * *
The best Polish poem of recent years.
Author unknown.
But certainly not poet A,
poet B, poet S.
The text is densely written
from right to left
and left to right
and from top to bottom
and bottom to top
and crosswise
and in tiny veinlets
up to the beautifully serrated margins.
The customs agent didn’t know the suspect code.
He just checked for letters,
seized books,
threw out photos,
ripped diplomas.
The best Polish poem of recent years
ended up abroad.
And now it can be read against the light
in Vienna
in Toronto
in Haifa
in Amsterdam.
As with all true poetry–
it’s difficult to translate
into the leaflet of a different birch
from a different cemetery.
Undated manuscript
If
If things could talk–
but if they could talk, they might also lie.
Especially the ordinary, underrated ones,
since they’d finally get some attention.
It’s awful to think
what your torn off button might tell me
and what tales you’d get from my house key,
the old liar.
Translated by Clare Cavanagh
***
El poema de la Antología poética, Visor, nueva edición (octubre, 2023).
Vista con grano de arena
Lo llamamos grano de arena.
Y él a sí mismo ni grano ni de arena.
Prescinde del nombre
general, individual,
efímero, perenne,
erróneo o adecuado.
De nada le sirve nuestra mirada, nuestro tacto.
No se siente ni visto ni tocado.
Y que haya caído sobre el alféizar de la ventana
es nuestra aventura, no la suya.
Para él, es lo mismo que caer sobre cualquier cosa,
sin la seguridad si ha caído ya,
o si sigue cayendo.
Desde la ventana hay una hermosa vista del lago,
pero esa vista no se ve a sí misma.
Incolora e informe,
áfona, inodora
e indolora su estancia en este mundo.
El fondo sin fondo del lago
y desorilladas sus orillas.
Ni mojada ni seca su agua.
Ni singulares ni plurales sus olas
que susurran, sordas a su propio susurro,
alrededor de ni pequeñas ni grandes piedras.
Y todo esto bajo un cielo por naturaleza sin cielo
en el que se pone el sol sin ponerse en absoluto
y se esconde sin esconderse tras una no sabedora nube.
El viento la sacude sin ningún otro motivo
que el de soplar.
Pasa un segundo.
Otro segundo.
Un tercer segundo.
Pero son solo nuestros esos tres segundos.
El tiempo pasó corriendo como un mensajero con una noticia urgente.
Pero es solo nuestra esa comparación.
Inventado el personaje, falsas sus prisas,
e inhumana la noticia.
Traducción: Abel Murcia, Gerardo Beltrán, Katarzyna Mołoniewicz
Selected samples
She climbed her first peaks in a headscarf at a time when women in the mountains were treated by climbers as an additional backpack. It was with her that female alpinism began! She gained recognition in a spectacular way. The path was considered a crossing for madmen. Especially since the tragic accident in 1929, preserved … Continue reading “Halina”
First, Marysia, a student of an exclusive private school in Warsaw’s Mokotów district, dies under the wheels of a train. Her teacher, Elżbieta, tries to find out what really happened. She starts a private investigation only soon to perish herself. But her body disappears, and the only people who have seen anything are Gniewomir, a … Continue reading “Wound”
A young girl, Regina Wieczorek, was found dead on the beach. She was nineteen years old and had no enemies. Fortunately, the culprit was quickly found. At least, that’s what the militia think. Meanwhile, one day in November, Jan Kowalski appears at the police station. He claims to have killed not only Regina but also … Continue reading “Penance”
The year is 1922. A dangerous time of breakthrough. In the Eastern Borderlands of the Republic of Poland, Bolshevik gangs sow terror, leaving behind the corpses of men and disgraced women. A ruthless secret intelligence race takes place between the Lviv-Warsaw-Free City of Gdańsk line. Lviv investigator Edward Popielski, called Łysy (“Hairless”), receives an offer … Continue reading “A Girl with Four Fingers”
This question is closely related to the next one, namely: if any goal exists, does life lead us to that goal in an orderly manner? In other words, is everything that happens to us just a set of chaotic events that, combined together, do not form a whole? To understand how the concept of providence … Continue reading “Order and Love”
The work of Józef Łobodowski (1909-1988) – a remarkable poet, prose writer, and translator, who spent most of his life in exile – is slowly being revived in Poland. Łobodowski’s brilliant three- volume novel, composed on an epic scale, concerns the fate of families and orphans unmoored by the Bolshevik Revolution and civil war and … Continue reading “Ukrainian Trilogy: Thickets, The Settlement, The Way Back”
