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Poland Unplugged

September 2005

Special Section: Poland Unplugged
By Alissa Valles
On the other hand, maybe poetry can flout its own time, its own conventions, pieties, syntactical laws, aesthetic (anesthetic) canons and going definitions and habits. These are a few poets who think…
Translated from Polish

Six Poems by Ryszard Krynicki

Return from Assisi
By Ryszard Krynicki
A mutilated Giotto. A loud: Silenzio!
Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles
Sweet, innocent
By Ryszard Krynicki
Sweet, innocent words,
Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles
Rue de Poitiers
By Ryszard Krynicki
A late afternoon, snow is falling.
Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles
The Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest
By Ryszard Krynicki
How did you find yourself here, / poor mummy of an Egyptian princess,
Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles
After Rain
By Ryszard Krynicki
Brother and sister, inscrutable sphinx, noble snail:
Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles
A Stone from New World
By Ryszard Krynicki
Only when I turned it over on its other side did I see that the heavy sandstone circle which looked like the top half of a mill
Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles

Two Poems by Janusz Szuber

Tiresias’s Lesson
By Janusz Szuber
What futures do the oracular oaks
Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles
Tiresias’s Farewell
By Janusz Szuber
From unexpiated sins / poems are born
Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles

Two Poems by Adam Wiedemann

Calypso
By Adam Wiedemann
The sea's color is green. / The white sand is stained with blood.
Translated from Polish by W. Martin
From “Konwalia”
By Adam Wiedemann
they have everything you can imagine here at least
Translated from Polish by W. Martin

Two Poems by Tadeusz Pióro

Product VI (International Style)
By Tadeusz Pióro
I see / two castles
Translated from Polish by the author
Product IV (Love and Death)
By Tadeusz Pióro
An anthologist from Berlin asks me / for poems new or recognized:
Translated from Polish by the author

Two Poems by Andrzej Sosnowski

Closer
By Andrzej Sosnowski
Remember the very first time you did it / tough wasn't the word.
Translated from Polish by Rod Mengham
On the Hoof
By Andrzej Sosnowski
The question about this fact-free life brimming / with great notions is, can you live up to it?
Translated from Polish by Rod Mengham

Four Poems by Jacek Gutorow

Padua
By Jacek Gutorow
Arcades: steps toward the sun. / Stone crossbeams with figures of griffins and nereids.
Translated from Polish by David Kennedy
Paints and Smears
By Jacek Gutorow
Her house in the middle of spring. / Ribbons in girls' hair, a smell of starch.
Translated from Polish by David Kennedy
The Prelude
By Jacek Gutorow
A boy stood on a narrow balcony / in the afternoon: autumn was moving
Translated from Polish by David Kennedy
Fragment
By Jacek Gutorow
Peat bog, fossilized air, loops of an evening sky.
Translated from Polish by David Kennedy

Three Poems by Marcin Sendecki

Good Later
By Marcin Sendecki
Uh huh says the streetcar, or it seems to say.
Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles
Blurb
By Marcin Sendecki
Weeks spent. a month / devoted to the study of a detail
Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles
Feverish Activity
By Marcin Sendecki
Good night
Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles

One Poem by Marcin Swietlicki

McDonald’s
By Marcin Swietlicki
I find the trace of your teeth in the foreign town.
Translated from Polish by Peter Constantine

Five Poems by Krystyna Milobedzka

From: “After the Cry”
By Krystyna Milobedzka
you have no name, no place
Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles
“I peel potatoes, stroke you on the head, pick up a leaf”
By Krystyna Milobedzka
I peel potatoes, stroke you on the head, pick up a leaf
Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles
“I lose verbs most quickly, nouns are left”
By Krystyna Milobedzka
I lose verbs most quickly, nouns are left,
Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles
“exactly the forehead, exactly the mouth, exactly the hands”
By Krystyna Milobedzka
exactly the forehead, exactly the mouth, exactly the hands
Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles
“I put off three dreams about father until later”
By Krystyna Milobedzka
I put off three dreams about father until later
Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles

Five Poems by Zbigniew Herbert

Look
By Zbigniew Herbert
The blue winter sky like a stone on which angels
Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles
On Translating Poetry
By Zbigniew Herbert
Like a clumsy bumblebee / he alights on a flower
Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles
Principality
By Zbigniew Herbert
Over the principality a cloud of snores rises, red as a cauldron.
Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles
She was doing her hair
By Zbigniew Herbert
she secured the halo on the top of her head
Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles
Angels of Civilization
By Zbigniew Herbert
The real renaissance of angels came with the development of airline companies.
Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles

Four Poems by Tadeusz Różewicz

“and once again”
By Tadeusz Różewicz
And once again / the past begins
Translated from Polish by Bill Johnston
cobweb
By Tadeusz Różewicz
four drab women / Want Hardship Worry Guilt
Translated from Polish by Bill Johnston
Ghost Ship
By Tadeusz Różewicz
the day is shorter / the sundial stands
Translated from Polish by Bill Johnston
Gray Zone
By Tadeusz Różewicz
my gray zone / is starting to include poetry
Translated from Polish by Bill Johnston

One Poem by Eugeniusz Tkaczyszyn-Dycki

From “Toward a Science of Nonexistence”
By Eugeniusz Tkaczyszyn-Dycki
if I only possessed a sunlit room / for sure I'd rid myself of my foes
Translated from Polish by Bill Johnston