OFF_press

audiogram

the doctor joked: with such hearing
miss, you  qualify for the army
he didn’t know I had taken psychology in 2007
when all the graduates were called up
except for me as I had forgotten
to check out of finland

I concluded: seems it’s still not enough
post regiment in headphones worth 5 zlotys
yes madame, you must accept
your slow loss of hearing
for the good of resonance

because a box like you, miss, can only rumble
you can forget fucking and families
and work is a waste for anyone
who happens to have a voice

and yet if you, miss, are afraid
of exposing yourself to ridicule
out of hunger eat a piece of shell and die alone
please apply two drops to each ear
three times a day until the barricade falls

next I would advise
a cure for the cold, punk rock, hangover and romanticism
and then just calmly
enlist in this world

kitten

autumn has come
the cat`s reaction to LSD has been checked
the animal could not stand on its own four paws
just like józek after the last bender
a village in syria was ambushed, a small siren was caught
I’m still waiting for the planet`s trepanation

the cat trembled like majka to whom we read
st. john’s apocalypse at bedtime
tabby saw the approaching horsemen with needles and squinted his eyes
in grotniki I found a portal leading to kołobrzeg
we entered the schengen zone

the terrible meowing resembled maciek
who sang our own country & western out of tune
and so a crowbar up your ass, a chocolate tomb and overwhelming solitude
all of these were bad trips but what could a cat expect
being filmed by some asshole straight-A chemistry student?

józek got to his feet
majka calmed down after a month
maciek got what was coming, and I woke in the eu
this cat will never rise again, all stripped of his catness
and his vision of doom will not return to the book

here comes the winter, a war with iran and other wild parties
all for the people so leave cats the fuck alone
surprising myself, I applaud the use of torture
against tabby’s butchers, each of us
keeps in a closet a private guantanamo

Tola

I’m not sure I can stand you saying
you don’t like reading
I may have to stop you playing disco
dress you all in black
and you won’t be yourself

you know Tola
that’s what you’ll be called
me, I’m always army boots and death disco
fuck the system – the only reasonable option

I would like you to be wise and beautiful
when I was your age I was neither
wise nor beautiful
it must be a wonderful feeling
but you put in so little effort

if you are ever born
know that it runs in our family
you must love yourself
to spite me

to se ne vrati

they say it won’t come in useful and are right
meal is better than metaphors, a poem
like a piece of cake

paradoxically  
any man who can be seduced with poetry
is a pitiful thing
not that he should start waving guns about  
real balls are something those chinese students had
when they stuck flowers into the barrels of tanks

naturally work
is acceptable only when
it brings real fruits, anyone who’s tried
tossing words into a blender knows
no juice will come out
only gibberish

they say poems are only good for wiping your ass
which is nice
knowing they have some use at least
though of course it’s nothing compared
to the oracle who in hexameter
declared the fates of the world

poets have never had it easy
he who attempts to explain himself in rhyme
will be locked up for certain
though it was not always so

when the sycylians conquered the athenian army
they only let go of those captives
who knew eurypides off by heart
killing the rest

it seems once upon a time it was possible
to live on poetry

remedy

I know you can raise your hand to strike
either me or a guitar string
to draw the most tender sound and what is the difference
between hitting a woman and smashing a guitar?

I don’t know which one of us is better
either for loving
or for receiving treatment
I once convinced you to see a psychiatrist
he told you to leave me

poems translated by Zuzanna Ogorzewska and Marek Kazmierski

…

Before the sentence

We emptied both rooms, the kitchen, hallway and bathroom,
there being no end to the things of the dead.

Ripping their postcards, we catch scraps of words and they’re there again,
younger, more alive, busy with the world.

the earth it shakes – says Boa Sr,
the last Andaman woman to speak
this sixty five thousand year old tongue –
when a tree falls with a mighty bang

Warsaw, 29 I 2012

translated by Marek Kazmierski and Wioletta Grzegorzewska

*Boa Sr.  (Circa 1925 – 26 January 2010) was an Indian Great Andamanese elder. She was the last surviving person who remembered any Bo, a language of the Great Andamanese language family.

Bosporus

Constantinople is on beautiful fire today, but it isn’t
opening fire, of the touch between flame
and sensitive, urban wood; the freshness
poisoned by smoke. I study the date
through crystal, at a safe
indifference, an etched turn
of phrase on my lips, with the first headline word

– I stop breathing. Today, you can choose
one of a range of icons; the rest extinguished, with
verses arranged in walls hurriedly
spat out by passers by. The bridge no longer there,

which is why today you can choose one
of those crystal icons, before they crumble.
Before you’re cut off from
the other side of the mic,
just before the immolation.
Save?

La Noche Triste

He fell asleep, his eyelids covered in richly decorated
cuts; shadows resting against them
in harmonies, with a taste specific
to this country. We were sitting
in a half-empty apartment, dirty
light from a long unwashed bulb. I wanted
to shower, but no water was running.
A tree blocking out the only window – from behind
its leaves a crooked, shimmering city appearing, one
which, as we’ll learn later, we’ll burn down. From beneath
the floorboards the wail of glasses and complaints that,
once again, they’ve been given mirrored bottles. One voice
was too indifferent not to be mine or his. Wanting
to silence it, I turned on the television
and came upon a beautiful tale – a film
cut together from nothing but end credits.

Report

Defeat in such situations can be interpreted as insanity
only when we agree to ignore the pasts of all those generals, all the
trysts which they had to drown along with shaved off stubble in sinks,
over which matt mirrors hung, minor affairs tossed across the front, before
they could bring anybody any joy, of limited
uses and approaching use by dates. Though
this is certainly scant assurance for families which
had to break themselves into tiny shards of glass upon receiving the telegram.
And it must be small comfort to the postmen who had to
gather them up with bare hands and send them to me with complaints, instead
of funeral wreaths for those no longer concerned with hygiene. And yet

I can read into more things than just my own complaints – I promise that
this conflict is about to die out. The only
outcome will be a little tickly
smoke down the throat, suspended in mid-air until exhausted.

translated by Marek Kazmierski

first-person analysis. tease

“Dramatic tension in writing – a philosopher would say – is in the interplay between

the desire to possess a thing and the inability to claim it, paid for, as he will state

elsewhere, “with moments of depressing powerlessness””

Deconstruction and interpretation

Anna Burzyńska

translated by Marek Kazmierski

Presentation given as part of the Polish Literature since 1989 conference, University College London, 2011

THE END OF THE OLD GUARD

The collapse of the Polish Communist State in 1989 also meant the end of the ominously-named Main Bureau for Control of the Press, Publishing and Public Performance (Główny Urząd Kontroli Prasy, Publikacji i Widowisk). However, poetry publishing, though suddenly freed from the censor‘s scissors, had to now contend with new and hitherto unknown enemy – free market forces. Poetry volumes begun appearing in ever smaller print runs, stripped of state-funded distribution and promotion, becoming a niche phenomena in the process. Yet, within literary circles of the time, there existed the expectation that this dramatic shift would also have a positive effect and a new generation of poets would follow the old guard, commenting and shaping a free Poland in the same way their predecessors had fought with their pens to help define and attain this freedom. Alternative cultural circles popped up all over the country, countless new zines being produced on previously inaccessible photocopiers, along with alternative newspapers and freely-organised live readings. Students set up their own literary journals in Krakow, Warsaw, Poznan, Gdansk and Silesia, which also involved the publication of many new volumes of poetry.

This watershed began as early as 1986, with the publication of the now-famous “blue issue” of Literature around the World (Literatura na Świecie), its cover depicting a ticket to the Museum of Modern Art in New York. This ground-breaking publication contained the work of poets such as Frank O‘Hara, John Ashbery, Kenneth Koch and others associated with the New York School, translated by Piotr Sommer and Bohdan Zadura, both well known poets in their own right. This particular issue had a huge influence on a new wave of Polish poets, causing a seismic shift in influence from Russian and French poets to those from the long-forbidden English language West.

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THE SONG OF THE BAD

All gone now. Burnt to a crisp, down
to pure ash. Down to absolute zero.
The end of that which persists.
Persists in wait to be substituted,
for nothing is for ever, as we know.

Nice boys source their rebellion
from black shops. In readiness
for first dates. For the second
they will buy something else. The real
bad boys gone, employed elsewhere.

Engaged by corporations.
On expense accounts and gold
cards. And now our old bad boys are
supervising the building of the tallest of towers.
And this is their song. The song the
guests will hear upon its unveiling.

Where poisoned vodka with poisoned
girls will be served. Girls with that
indicator inside them. The air thick
with the air of luxury. The good
dead. Those who remain will launch
a new season, and I will write them a song.

A song about how it is
all ash.

YEARS OF PRACTICE

First the detail, there being too much of it
to get your head around with a single gaze.
Oh hell, you whisper under your breath, unheard of,
and then it’s all exclamation marks.

Intercourse continues and leads to new fragments found,
fragments which find their fans. Initial delighting
turns out too common, so now it’s time for expertise.
To be contemplated, like a Xi Shi tea pot.

You spend years piecing this together, attaching, adding,
and in the end it comes out completely something other than.
And so I can now tell you – Ingres,
not an ass! Not and ass at all! And smile right after.

30 MILES OF EARLY SAILING

For conversation, says the Captain, you need
both shouting and whispering. Breathless
you can only die, though this is not enough.

To catch seaborne creatures, as to
perform operas, one needs
a huge voice. Killing like an aria.

However, once it is all over, you whisper
in private a tale of higher destinies,
translated fireworks, simple bullshit sometimes.

And yet the origin of everything is –
this is the Captain talking still – the breath. You are born,
he says, though you look like you are drowning.

Translated by Marek Kazmierski

This first collection from one of Poland’s most promising poets spans the course of an already rich publishing career, covering her childhood and the experience of growing up in post-Communist Poland to her most recent struggles with life in England and the continuation of her existence as a woman of letters on foreign soil. This is the first time her work has been published in English, representing an important moment for contemporary poetry produced outside of Poland. The book also contains the poems in the original Polish. ISBN 9780956394682 Genre Poetry Pages 112 Languages English / Polish Wioletta Grzegorzewska – born in 1974 in southern Poland. Her poetry volumes include Wyobraźnia kontrolowana (Częstochowa 1998), Parantele (Częstochowa 2003), Orinoko (Tychy 2008) and Inne obroty (Toronto – Rzeszów 2010). Her poems have been published in the following literary journals: “Arterie”, “Arkusz”, “OFF_Press”, “Studium”, “Tygiel Kultury” and “Zeszyty Literackie”. She won the “Tyska Zima Poetycka” competition for the publication of a volume of post-debut poetry. Her poems have been translated into English. In 2006, she left Poland and moved to the UK, where she currently resides in the town of Ryde on the Isle of Wight.	Cena 50.00zl z przesyłką do Polski. Przelew Santander Bank Plc / sort code 09-06-66 / acc number 42690657 / IBAN GB51ABBY09066642690657 / SWIFT-BIC code ABBYG2L xxx. prosimy o przesłanie emaila do info@off-press.org podąjac imie, nazwisko i adres pocztowy.
	Shipping options UK delivery £12.99 GBP EU delivery £14.99 GBP Worldwide delivery £19.99 GBP

in association with

Tonight is All Saint’s Eve and Jakobe asked if we could launch the English language translation of book on this very date… having lived his poems, as publisher and translator, for over a year now, I couldn’t think of a more wonderful idea.

Close, yet strangely cool… sad, yet ever celebratory… boyish, yet honestly brave… Vienna High Life is a book to live by.

Written in the Baltic Tri-city over a period of some eight years, winner of prestigious literary nominations and awards in Poland, translated and hand-bound in London, each copy comes with I DIDN’T WANT TO  BOTHER GOD ANYWAY, a half-hour documentary about Jakobe, shot especially for this international publication, on DVD.

Marek Kazmierski, editor

click here to visit our on-line bookshop

in association with

11 November · 14:30 – 17:00

UCL

2.45-3.00 Marek Kazmierski (OFF_Press): Polish Poetry Since 1989 – A Brief Reconnaissance

Wioletta Grzegorzewska: Looking for Real Poetry with Czesław Miłosz, followed by readings in Polish, and in English translation by Marek Kazmierski]

David Malcolm (University of Gdańsk): Memory and Diction in Jerzy Jarniewicz’s Poetry

Katarzyna Zechenter (UCL SSEES). Readings from her recent collection W cieniu drzewa (2011) [some to be read in Polish, some in English translation by Bogdana Carpenter].

Richard Reisner: New Prose Poems by Ewa Lipska

Elżbieta Wójcik-Leese: Marcin Świetlicki, Marzanna Kielar, Wojciech Bonowicz and Krystyna Miłobędzka.

Bill Johnston: Eugeniusz Tkaczyszyn-Dycki

Mira Rosenthal: Tomasz Różycki

Antonia Lloyd-Jones: Tadeusz Dąbrowski, Jacek Dehnel

5.00-5.30: Closing Discussion led by Elwira Grossman

for complete conference directions and registration instructions, please click on the logo above…

in association with

introduction to one of Polands most celebrated poets in the most recent edition of Biweekly… translations courtesy of OFF_PRESS

click on the image to read on…

READ MORE OF EUGENIUSZ TKACZYSZYN-DYCKI AMONG OTHER MOST CELEBRATED POLISH POETS IN OUR RECENT ANTHOLOGY – FREE OVER BLOOD…

available from our on-line book store (click image below to follow link)

Prowcza*

The stream gabs gate gate para gate
parasam gate bodhi swaha, the chime

of sheep bells follows, a man
in suspenders beats a seeder

with a hammer to remove rust.
Clear sounds travel far and disappear.

*Prowcza is a stream in Bieszczady Mountains which divides two peaks. It is characterized by many small waterfalls and plants inhabitants which creates a unique landscape.

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To celebrate Justyna Bargielska winning the prestigious Gdynia Literary Prize for the second year in a row, we are presenting three of her poems, taken from our upcoming anthology of contemporary Polish poetry Free Over Blood, translated by Katarzyna Szuster.

Justyna Bargielska- 3 poems

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’89

The pussy aching instead of the heart. She
has inside knowledge and before he strips off
knows whether to risk the after-effects of

taking postinor. When he asked do you want
to fuck, but didn’t follow through, she thought
that it was the prelude to real love:

picnicking together in the shade of pyramids, joint
ecstasies set to songs about ecstasies of candy
floss. She cried over the pope, but even more so

when he didn’t ask do you want to fuck a second
time. After just two drinks, he confesses to me:
the absence of pubic hair is an show of real class.

All deeper knowledge lies right on the surface.

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phloem

wind opens the door. we’ve probably done all we could

shooting one another, like prophets. we hid our treasure

in ridged bark. let those who don’t count look for one another.

the ones who won’t pay. exorbitant sums and masses

will always collide, dear appalled woman.

let’s then let those who don’t count seek for themselves. and why

shouldn’t you buy a bottle of chilli? you’ll visit germany

and get married? go put some iodine on your eye lids

and take a walk. your back to the moon. the sky is after all

irreversible.

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Bow Bridge

Out of the past, I retrieve a thick calendar
its Provence meadows smelling of lavender
piercing March with a naked sunflower and,
abandoned across January, Bow Bridge, its  
padded white arch across Central Park,

leading towards a thick clump of cherry trees
suddenly drowning in the end in eclectic darkness,
the sun stuck high up to the right tightly shading
the fine alabaster balustrade upon which by night
so often lovers are wont to sit for ages, for good,

to the left, out of ribbed waters, biscuit coloured
twin skyscrapers flee towards the heavens,
thousands of panicked pupils trapped behind glass
scanning down towards rusty bulrush musings,
startled lavender horses galloping across the bridge

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OFF_PRESS will soon be publishing the English language translation of this young poet’s trilogy of books – here he is in interview with Marek Kazmierski…

How do you see Gdansk and its literary scene?

Not sure if a lot happens here, but some events do, in Gdansk and more across the Tri-city, Gdynia, Sopot, but I don’t take part in such things, at all, never been to literary events, apart from the one where I was invited to read, and I did once go to a poetry slam, which was enough for me. I don’t feel the need, they give me nothing, I know these things happen, but they don’t recharge my batteries.

Tell us about the Polish poetry scene today…

Hard to know what to say, as there is not much in there for me. I could say I don’t like it, it’s not good, bad perhaps, but why, I’ve been reading the same authors for years, Ted Hughes, Philip Larkin, Walt Whitman, Czeslaw Milosz when it comes to Poland. Sometimes I reach for Polish writers, but again I don’t feel my mind energised by contemporary Polish poetry… I feel energised by the Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters, or by Robert Lowell. I do write poetry, but I’m not subject to it. I want to use it, explore it, but I don’t want to be its servant. Language should serve me, not I it.

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