The release of the 40th anniversary of edition of this literary work is an important event. It is entitled Równolegości / Parallelism. The author runs the Literary Waves Publishing House. She is a member of the English and Polish Pen Club. She has been awarded the Gloria Artis Medal for Merit to Culture and the Cross of Freedom and Solidarity. Her poems have received awards in competitions in Great Britain and Italy.
The introduction to the latest work is written by Amelia Serraller Calyo from Spain. It begins with the poem "they were not the ones." The unspecified "they ... ordered the trees to be silent" and "gagged the birds." This is a reminiscence from 1985. The next piece "my mother" is about hard work, serving to help others. The poem entitled "secret of the manuscript" written in Oxford is a reflection on the atmosphere at the ancient university: among flowers, fountains, courtyards. All this opens up "spaces deafened." "An Angel in London" tells about a meeting with a young seller of carrots and tomatoes. With a pale complexion, with "wings a bit chipped," he seems to be out of place.
Human fates unfold differently. This angel still faces the challenge ahead of him: of discovering himself while abroad. Walking around London, we wander with Mickiewicz to Regent's Park. We come across the moment of a proposal. He is among the invisible clouds, she is "tangled by a rose muslin." Their time together will be measured by a clock on a Victorian tower. We will notice a jaybird "full of fear."
The poet travels around the world, visits California, the Cornish moors, the blue-drenched hills of the Greek sea, and reads carefully Joseph Conrad’s English writings. We learn about the encoded emotions of a mother who lost her son; she writes about it sparingly, with great distance but also with pain that cannot be hidden. It is embedded in the description of simple actions. What did he do, what did he not do; he "did not even drink water / but fed the cat / said goodbye to his mother / he adjusted his suit." Is shrapnel of the day in Aleksandra Palace like grenade shrapnel? Is it the arrival of a spring or of a war? The streets rumble, the puddles light up. They sparkle. A blooming bouquet, a green tree are enough to create a spring poem. At Forty Hall manor "the platonic soul opens spaces," an ocean breeze appears, and "time strokes the air tenderly / the sluggish sun treads on the waves of the stream."
The texts written abroad and those from home (memories or longings) create parallels. Now we know the reason for the book's title. The poem "Lublin counterpoints" recalls an old craftsman, Jan, who painted church arcades, and Stanisław, a carpenter. Their works have outlived their masters. Their silhouettes are remembered only by "the old ladies who peek out from behind the curtains." The action jumps to Manchester. Here we meet Chopin. We empathize with his mood. It is obvious that, suffering from lung disease, "he did not like the smog / … damp English weather," and crowded streets. Listening to the concert of the "Raindrop Prelude," we understand the loneliness of the genius, we admire the drops of music, like rain dripping "from his thin fingers, rapidly." In France, we get to know "walls of Aigues-Mortes." Ocne the only 13th century French port, it has now its moments of glory behind it. "An overgrown beach / a trodden grass / not knowing the scratching mowers' are a memento of departing into the void, like the crusades, the sixth and seventh, which set off from here.
The juxtaposition of Socrates and Jaspers implies a comparison of faith in miraculous events and the self. The former will return to us in poems – "Socrates' cold gardeners" and "About the mystery of time." Everything is short-lived. Drinking coffee quickly on the Berkeley hills, we can only pretend that "we are still sipping something aromatic." Truly, drinking it during a meeting that is at the same time a short farewell, we do not have a moment to lose.
An experience that is incomprehensible to "those who did pass across" but also to those "who did not pass across" is the state of war, whether it is a coup d'état or spruces in the Estonian forest broken like matches. They can be compared to broken souls. Echoes of such experiences slowly fade away, and we "put on earmuffs / silencing wars," opening the borders of independence. This is a reminiscence from London in 2024, 44 years after 1981, after General Jaruzelski's coup.
Several texts are dedicated to personal experiences, for example the poem "birthday sun," another entitled "Was it worth it?" as well as "My Victorian house," and "I will return to you." In sum, this is another interesting volume, giving an idea of the scope of the poet’s work.
The section "With a Reviewer's Pen" complements the poems very well. Here, we find the statements of Prof. Urszula Chowaniec, who emphasizes the compression of the poetic stanzas. Katarzyna Kado, herself a poet publishing, among others, in the Lublin’s Akant, draws attention to the alienation visible in the texts of Anna Maria Mickiewicz. Krzysztof Muszkowski, a veteran of the 17th Lviv Regiment and the 300th Mazovian Land Squadron, but also the secretary of Mieczysław Grydzewski, writes about the poet's emotions enclosed in "poetic landscapes." Dr Teresa Podemska-Abt from the antipodes writes about taming the world, with references to Polish and European culture. Dr Tomasz Niedokos, literary scholar, lecturer, researching the history of England, British media, and historical inspirations for cultural texts, draws attention to adaptation in the new country, drawing from the experiences of two cultures. Ted Smith-Orr notices Mickiewicz's "London Manuscript" and writes about "an emigrant poet ... who looks at her new surroundings" and describes her observations as "enlightening and bold." Krystyna Konecka reviews the volume Between Lublin and London. Selected Poems, writing about memory, longing, their magical influence on poetry, the economy of language, refined metre, and lightness of impression. Prof. Jerzy F. Fert develops the theme of symbolism contained in a minimum of words. Tom Wachtel from London appreciates conciseness, conveying the specifics and atmosphere of places. Adam Siemieńczyk appreciates the conversation "with the crying Socrates," its ancient and contemporary references. David Clark captures this poetry by calling it the "snapshots of fleeting moments," and comments on the meticulousness and "world of the inner self" of the poet.
In this distinguished choir of reviewers, I was delighted to find some space for a few sentences of my own. I am enchanted by the apparent distance, responsibility for every word, consummate mastery, faithfulness of descriptions and identification with Englishness. On re-reading the poems in the collection Parallelisms, I recommend them to all lovers of lyrical speech and experts in Polish-British relations.
No comments:
Post a Comment