Remembering Adam Zagajewski, 1945-2021

The great Polish poet Adam Zagajewski died on 21 March of this year - which was also World Poetry Day - and it has taken me this long to write about it. The coincidence of the date was a poignant one because I have often thought of and shared his poems on World Poetry Day and similar days for the discovery and appreciation of poetry. He was the ideal poet for the purpose.

A few of my very favourite writers have died in the past year, but this death was perhaps even a little harder to come to terms with as Zagajewski was only 75, relatively young. It's also simply difficult to imagine him gone. Whenever I thought of him, he was somewhere in Central Europe writing outdoors at a café, or reading at some gathering of world poets. 

I think Adam Zagajewski's poems were easy to love, which is no bad thing. When I think of his poems, words such as the following come to mind: humane, gentle, affectionate, clarifying. After 9/11, his poem 'Try to Praise the Mutilated World' became very famous in its English-speaking translation by Clare Cavanagh when it appeared in The New Yorker. Not one of my personal favourites of his poems, I still appreciate it and its immense value in the wake of a huge, world-changing tragedy. It distills what I think Zagajewski did best - the acknowledgement that dark, horrendous things happen but the equal observation that life continues and that the value of light, beauty and faith remains unchanged. 

If there is one contemporary poet who I most clearly see as an influence on my own poetry, it's Zagajewski. I relate profoundly to his vision of things and would aspire to write like him. The curious thing is that, unlike most poets who I consider a major influence on my life and writing, I can't now remember how and where I first encountered him. I did get to go to one of his readings, about five or six years ago at Wilton's Music Hall in east London. It was especially moving when he read 'To Go to Lvov', a very important poem for me which I wrote about here some years ago. I also met him very briefly when he signed a book of his selected poems for me. I thought that he seemed reserved but kind, and when I asked him if he recommended any contemporary Polish poets he suggested Tomasz Różycki (who in my opinion is of the stature of Zagajewski). I dug out the book after I heard that Zagajewski had died, and was touched to discover that he had actually written Różycki's name down for me on a card which I'd kept in the book - probably aware that English speakers tend to find Polish names extremely difficult. 

It's so hard to choose a favourite poem by Zagajewski. When I reread them now, years after first readings, they remind me of emotions and moments in my life, and they take me to places which I've visited or which I hope to visit some day. 'Star' has been a talisman for me for many years. 'Vita Contemplativa' occupies a central place of importance in my pantheon of poems, and lines from it often surface in my mind. 'Poetry Searches for Radiance' is a powerful mission statement for poetry. Whether one of his collections, a selected poems or something randomly found online, his works will reward both casual reading and prolonged engagement. What is much harder than finding the right poem by Zagajewski is accepting that he's not here any more. 

Be sure to read this powerful essay and personal remembrance on Zagajewski by the poet Ilya Kaminsky: https://yalereview.org/article/going-to-lvov 

Photo: "LITERAKTUM 2019-ADAM ZAGAJEWSKI" by DONOSTIA KULTURA is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

Adam Zagajewski's 'Don't Allow the Lucid Moment to Dissolve': Clinging to Lucidity

Soap Bubble by Mike Haller. Used under Creative Commons license


I've been blogging for more than three years now, which may or may not be longer than expected. One thing is certain: very few things get easier with the passage of time, whatever people may tell you - if you're like me and motivation, momentum and good habits aren't your strong points, anyway.

I have recently been wondering what The Stone and the Star is for and whether it needs to change, whether or not I should continue, whether I should dial back on the Facebook and Twitter aspects and just blog, whether I should concentrate on having 800+ Twitter followers and not worry much about the blog...etc. The fact remains that while sometimes blogging feels more like a chore than like a release, it started all this (whatever "all this" is) and in my mind, the blog still seems to be framed as one of the core points of my creative life. The other social media aspects are more peripheral.

I was reaching for a poem which might articulate some of what I've been thinking about and I came to Adam Zagajewski's 'Don't Allow the Lucid Moment to Dissolve'.


DON'T ALLOW THE LUCID MOMENT TO DISSOLVE (Adam Zagajewski, translated by Renata Gorczynski)


In this poem, the "lucid moment" is about reaching our full potential - "the level of ourselves" and "[t]he stature of a man...notched/high up on a white door". When in conclusion Zagajewski says "On a hard dry substance/you have to engrave the truth", it certainly calls poetry and writing to mind; perhaps also the visual arts, carved like Michelangelo's painful and glorious statues; or music, inscribed on the page and written in sound on air.

Beyond these, so much that is important happens because people hold on to and make a record of lucid moments. The Bible writers and prophets, whether you believe their inspiration was divine or otherwise, certainly saw the crucial necessity of recording the lucid moment. Great scientists, explorers, human rights activists and others have glimpsed and reached for them repeatedly. The "lucid moments" become a kind of ladder, or a series of lights on the roadway ('lucid' comes from the Latin for 'light'). And while blogging about poetry isn't a great deal, it can also be a small way to hold onto and to reach forward with lucidity.

The Mixed Bag: A Bunch of Poems Unlinked By Theme (I Think)

I really wanted to post something tonight, and then found myself at an excruciating loss as to what to post. It's almost as though the poem I wanted to post does not exist, but I still have it in mind. This is probably an indication that I should write it myself. So far, this has actually been a reasonably productive year poetry-wise. But the "poem lurking around the corner of my brain, and I'm not sure if it's my own or someone else's" feeling is always an odd one.

Anyway, I finally decided that I should just post links to a few poems which I have recently enjoyed, discovered, re-read, been thinking about, etc lately, so that you have a few to choose from. There will be no commentary - although I think that at some point I would like to write at least a little bit about some of these fine poets. It may not be The Rattle Bag, but hopefully it's an interesting mixed bag. I am nothing if not random.


THE JUDGMENT TALE (Valzhyna Mort)

MANY THINGS HAPPENED (Nikola Madzirov)

'A furnace in my father's voice; I prayed for the coal stove's' (Ishion Hutchinson)

THE TRULY GREAT (Stephen Spender)

ALL THAT IS CERTAIN IS NIGHT LASTS LONGER THAN THE DAY (Karen Solie)

POETRY SEARCHES FOR RADIANCE (Adam Zagajewski)

Adam Zagajewski's 'To Go to Lvov': "It Is Everywhere"

Yellow car in street of Lvov, Grigory Kravchenko, 2007. Used under Creative Commons license



Since late last year, and particularly in the last few weeks, Ukraine has moved briefly into the world's fickle spotlight. No one knows exactly what will happen to its government or to its people, but the events of recent years have taught many nations to hope for the best and prepare for the worst.

The focus at this moment has moved away from the bloodshed in Kiev's Euromaidan to the largely pro-Russian Crimean peninsula, but a city in western Ukraine called Lviv, or Lvov, has also received attention. Lviv was part of Poland until 1939, when it came alternately under Russian and German control. Since the end of the war, it has been part of Ukraine, and most of its Polish residents were deported. It was also once a major Jewish centre - most of its Jewish population died between 1941 and 1943.

Lviv is one of the cities which in recent days has allied itself with the protestors in Kiev, threatening a decisive movement away from Russia and towards Europe, even independence. It made me think of one of the most famous and beloved poems by Polish poet Adam Zagajewski, 'To Go to Lvov'.


TO GO TO LVOV (Adam Zagajewski, translated by Renata Gorczynski)


Adam Zagajewski was born in Lvov in 1945, and he and his family were among those who were expelled in the same year, to central Poland. Amidst all the news about Ukraine, I was thinking about how it must shape a human being to live in places where borders shift, and cities change names and countries. 'To Go to Lvov' is partly about this: Lvov has become a sort of mythical place, a Borgesian city where "snails converse about eternity" and the stones murmur. The speaker isn't even sure if it is real or not. This happens when you know a place only through family stories, or when you lose it in childhood. But there's more to it: more that I can't really understand, coming from a stable country and a stable background - more so than what most people in this world experience.

I appreciate poetry's accuracy; it can give its readers a greater capacity for empathy. I wasn't born at the end of a war, we weren't refugees, we didn't live in countries where the borders kept shifting or where genocide had recently occurred. I've lived in three different countries, but those choices were entirely my own, more for pleasure than out of necessity. But poetry at its best breaks the boundaries of language to achieve such emotional accuracy that, through a poem such as this, a reader such as myself can glimpse the inner landscape of the people shaped by such events.

'To Go to Lvov' is a classic Adam Zagajewski poem. It remains in a delicate balance between darkness and optimism. As the poem goes on, the shadows draw in more and more thickly, like the clouds covering the sun.

[...] and the cathedral trembled, people bade goodbye   

without handkerchiefs, no tears, such a dry

mouth, I won’t see you anymore, so much death   

awaits you, why must every city

become Jerusalem and every man a Jew,

and now in a hurry just

pack, always, each day,

and go breathless, go to Lvov, after all

it exists, quiet and pure as

a peach. It is everywhere.

What is most terrible and wonderful about this conclusion is when the speaker says "why must every city/become Jerusalem and every man a Jew,/and now in a hurry just/pack..." We all know why so many Jews, and others, had to pack in a hurry; generally they were going to exile, often death. But then the sun emerges from the clouds: "go breathless, go to Lvov, after all/it exists, quiet and pure as/a peach. It is everywhere." Zagajewski turns around all the loss and grief and death implied. Instead of being nowhere, Lvov is everywhere. There is hope for everything that we have loved.

 

My Favourite Poems Of the Last Few Years...More Or Less

I'm not really one for end-of-year lists. The timing of this list-oriented entry may seem suspicious, but it's (more or less) coincidental; at any rate, it's not a "best of 2013".

While I've often written about classic poems on this blog, I particularly wanted to highlight some of the new (or new-ish) poems that I've discovered and loved since I started The Stone and the Star - or at least, that I've discovered in recent years.

Vague enough? Well, let's say the list that follows includes ten of my favourite poems of the last few years, or at least not too long ago (so if something is five or ten years old, don't write to me in protest). Some of them I've written about already, and where links are provided they should either take you directly to the poem, or to an entry I've written about them (which should contain either the poem, or a link to the poem). Where I haven't yet written about these poets, you may see more of them in 2014 on the blog. The main thing to know is that these poems are a good way to spend some time.


Travel Papers (Carolyn Forché)
Fast Is the Century (Nikola Madzirov)
At Roane Head (Robin Robertson)
Man Praying, King's Cross, 34° (Toby Martinez de las Rivas)
Hennecker's Ditch (Kate Kilalea)
Vita Contemplativa (Adam Zagajewski)
Migration (Karen Solie)
How To Build Your Dream Garden (Kapka Kassabova)
Author's Prayer (Ilya Kaminsky)
Garden Statues (Al-Saddiq Al-Raddi)


The countries represented include the United States, Macedonia, Scotland, England, South Africa, Poland, Canada, Bulgaria, the Ukraine, and Sudan, and three (four?) of the poems are in translation from other languages. This international range was not at all deliberate, by the way, but I think it's pretty interesting. It certainly highlights the fact that my exciting poetic discoveries of recent years have often been international and/or in translation.

Adam Zagajewski's 'Autumn': "Blue Knives Glinting In Her Glance"

Victor Westerholm, Landscape From Rath, 1880. Ateneum, Helsinki


Although the weather is remarkably warm here in London at the moment, the autumn darkness is closing in. In that spirit, here's a grim, fierce poem on the subject by the wonderful Polish poet Adam Zagajewski.


AUTUMN (Adam Zagajewski, translated by Renata Gorczynski)


The painting above is by Finnish landscape painter Victor Westerholm. He was the director of the Turku Art Gallery, in my mother's hometown of Turku - a gallery which had a very powerful effect on me as a child. Westerholm was fond of painting cows, and this painting's lack of bovine presences seems ominous indeed.

This blog entry is mainly to tide you over while I prepare what is hopefully a stunning-to-reasonably-good post on Lorca. I had hoped to perhaps produce the Lorca post tonight, but I'm not quite there yet.

Adam Zagajewski's 'Vita Contemplativa': "In Dark Waters, In Brightness"

Berlin, Museuminsel, 1956. Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-41736-0005 / CC-BY-SA


It's perhaps two or three years since I started reading Adam Zagajewski's work. He is originally from Lwów in Poland, which inspired one of his most beautiful poems, 'To Go To Lvov'. From a country and a generation which produced many remarkable poets, he is outstanding.

I am distantly fascinated by Poland. So far I have only visited Krakow for a weekend, but it did not disappoint me. Among its other mysteries, the city carried faint echoes of the weeks I spent every summer in Finland as a child. I suppose this is some Baltic commonality, something in the air. I really love what I have read of Polish literature. The Poles seem to be both philosophical and passionate, which appeals to me a good deal. I remember years ago in Dublin, when I and a friend met some Polish sailors on board their ship in the docklands. I mentioned that I loved Joseph Conrad, although our conversation was mainly about the Bible. When we took our leave, one of the sailors kissed my hand.


VITA CONTEMPLATIVA (Adam Zagajewski)


The narrator of this poem is in Berlin, reflecting on the quiet moment in history where he seems to find himself. I have also been to Berlin; "dark waters" and "black buildings", indeed. I suppose that the references to Greek statuary are from the Pergamon Museum. Zagajewski, or his narrator, says with what seems to me some irony, "So this is the vita contemplativa...So this is it." Like philosophers before him, he contrasts the contemplative life with the active life, and obviously doesn't find peace. The contrast between "tranquility" and "taut attention" suggests that he knows this is just a suspended moment in time. After all, how often and for how long has peace reigned in Europe, or in the world of humans?

I'm haunted by the final line of 'Vita Contemplativa': "We dwell in the abyss. In dark waters. In brightness." There is no one who can fail to find something resonant in those words, in their life.