MUSEUM POETICA: TRANSLUCINE

Invisible by Jacek Gutorow translated from the Polish by Piotr Florczyk, with an introduction by Mark Ford (Arc Publications, Sept. 2021).

From the “Translator’s Preface”

I’ve been reading and thinking about Jacek Gutorow’s exquisite poems for over a decade. When I published my first selection of his poetry in English, in 2012, I knew the occasion wouldn’t mark the end of my engagement with his work, which is the case for me sometimes, as I pillage and plunder my chosen poets, learning everything I can from them as a fellow writing artist, before moving on. No, I still wake and fall asleep to Gutorow’s poems. I talk to them while reading them aloud. Direct and spare at first glance, on closer inspection they open up, so to speak, revealing a profound depth of thought and feeling that can only be the design of a poet who’s both erudite and tenderhearted — a rarity, to be sure, these days.

Translating a poet whose work wouldn’t be looked on kindly by participants in creative writing workshops, where the drive to narrativize reigns supreme, is a tricky business. For one thing, I’ve had to resist the urge to overwrite the translations by dramatizing their moving parts in order to heighten their cumulative rhetoric. This is neither about the images nor the words per se, most of which can be carried over neutrally. Rather, it is about the mood of the poem and its gravitas. Gutorow the poet seems to oscillate between wishing to engage with his surroundings and keeping the world at arm’s length. This state of in-betweenness preferred by the poet allows his peregrinations to unfold organically — as much in his mind as physically, in real time.

NIEOPOWIEDZIANE HISTORIE  

Wiersz nie jest łatwopalny.
Ogień nie jest wierszem.
Ciążą ku sobie w osobnych historiach,
które, raz opowiedziane, nigdy nie są wolne,
przepływają jak strzępy obłoków po papierowym niebie:
bursztyn rozeta figowiec

UNTOLD HISTORIES

The poem is not flammable.
Fire is not a poem.
They gravitate towards each other in separate histories
that, once told, are no longer free.
They sail like shreds of clouds across a paper sky:
amber rosewood fig

PÓŁNOC. NOTATKA  

Wyniosło ich tak daleko w morze
Jakby byli osobnym kontynentem
Wszystkie bandaże rozwinięte
Zwiewane na skomplikowany fiord

NORTH. A NOTE

Carried far out to sea
As if they were a separate continent
All their bandages unwound
Blown into an elaborate fjord

ZAŚPIEW

Dom, którego pierwsze piętro było echem.
Przyjechali piętnaście lat po wojnie,
wciągnęła ich głucha czeluść,
nienaganne milczenie rzeczy.

EASTERN ACCENT

The house whose second story was an echo.
They arrived fifteen years after the war,
mesmerized by the deafening hollow,
the perfect idiolect of things.

MUZYKA SFER (JESZCZE JEDNO POŻEGNANIE Z RÓŻEWICZEM)

to mogła być dłoń
trzymająca smyczek
wyprowadzająca muzykę
pokazująca świat
góry rzeki lasy
zjednana na chwilę
z harmonią dźwięków
tak bliskich
że można dotknąć
każdego ścięgna
naprężona melodia
żywego mięsa

MUSIC OF THE SPHERES (ONE MORE FAREWELL TO RÓŻEWICZ)

it could’ve been a hand
holding a bow
letting music go
reflecting the world
mountains rivers forests
united for a moment
in the harmony of sounds
so close
that you can touch
each tendon
the strained melody
of live flesh

CIRCLE

It’s not us walking
It’s the road that runs in us
Disappearing in its own current
Our little Acheron

KRĄG

To nie my idziemy
To droga biegnie w nas
Znika we własnym nurcie
Nasz mały Acheron

A SHORT HISTORY OF POST-CONFESSIONAL POETRY

A beautiful autumn morning.
In a new pharmacy on the corner
a poet buys anti-depressants
for his daughter.

KRÓTKA HISTORIA POEZJI POST-KONFESYJNEJ 

Piękny jesienny poranek.
W nowej aptece na rogu
poeta kupuje antydepresanty
dla swojej córki.

Jacek Gutorow (b. 1970) is one of Poland’s premier poets who are also searching critics and trailblazing translators. His award-winning publications include over a dozen titles. Among the poets and writers he has written on or translated are Wallace Stevens, John Ashbery, Charles Tomlinson, Geoffrey Hill, Simon Armitage, Mark Ford, Jacques Derrida, Hannah Arendt, Martin Heidegger, Edward Said, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Franz Kafka, and Marcel Proust. Indeed, his engagement with all three activities has made him a highly respected scholar and writing artist whose voice, both erudite and fiercely independent, bears the mark of someone engaged in the literary conversation spanning multiple traditions, time periods, and languages. He is a professor of British and American literatures at the University of Opole.

Piotr Florczyk is a poet, scholar, and translator of Polish poetry. His latest books include From the Annals of Kraków, a volume of poems based on the testimonies of Holocaust survivors. For more info, please visit www.piotrflorczyk.com