OBLIGATION! Andrzej Nowak: "Smoleńska Anthology. 96 Poems" - Introduction

Andrzej Nowak

What's poesy for? What a question. Seduce the pegasus of individual, most intimate emotions to the plow, to the service, possibly only any rude. And yet poetry, which serves nothing, from ego, arises and into ego, no 1 cares. This destiny is experienced by a large part of the production of poetic volumes, very easy present and so so frequently barren.

The poems here collected something seemingly serve. They're not ashamed of it. In fact, they are actively active in public affairs. It is simply a large hazard – we know: engaged poetry. Just callback 1 name, a Nobel Prize laureate. No 1 so eloquently warns against commitment, from service, as the example of Wisława Szymborska does. She erstwhile decided, with a legion of her peers, to service at the court of the oppressors, and then, erstwhile "burned" by her commitment, with her full (nearly) work after 1956, to persuade no public idols to serve. She was no longer in service, but she was still, unfortunately, used. besides as a tool to combat attempts to renew patriotic note in Polish culture.

This was never meant to come back, put back to the lame, along with specified mocked “martyrology”. erstwhile and for all, this note, which the Polish poesy revived so far in its history: from the song by Bolesław Krzywousty written in Latin by Anonym called Gall, through the winged words of Jan Kochanowski, hymns of bar confederates, poems by Ignacy Krasicki, Adam Mickiewicz, Juliusz Słowacki, Cyprian Kamil Norwid, Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński, Tadeusz Gajcy, Marian Hemar, to Zbigniew Herbert and Jarosław Marek Rymkiewicz. 900 years of commitment to the Polish community, faithful service to the Polish fate. That's enough! – say ridiculers. Enough! yet free from public servoituts, we can get out of the wall, grow up into a universal subject, stay with our ‘I’. Those who do not accept this, cling to tradition, home, community, history, experience a Polish destiny that did not end on 4 June 1989 or on 1 May 2004 (after entering the EU) – this 1 exposes himself to a flogging of laughter, is thrown out in the outer darkness.

And now, after so effectively, it would seem that the repeated lesson of contempt and forgetting, it turns out that from these outer darkness comes a clear voice. There is no fear of the verdict of the Warsaw salon (Krakowski, Gdańsk, Wroclaw...). There is no fear in him due to the fact that there is simply a stronger sense of commitment than he is. To search justice—against the screaming injustice. The truth—to the most audacious, vile lie. For dignity—to the eventual humiliation. That's what poesy is for, faithful to its duties.

This is poesy awakened by the Smolensk tragedy. Poetry, which is simply a road, not a goal. This road leads through the desert. The scenery is fading. The failure of basic civilian bonds, not only patriotic, Polish, but simply interpersonal. erstwhile it turned out that it was possible to mock the uncooled corpses, the pain of orphaned children, wives who lost their husbands, that it was possible to organize full media campaigns of support for the most vulgar behaviour that this mockery was to express. This is the desert where the final questions arise, not only that – does Poland as a community mean anything else? Is it inactive there? – but besides the question, does the word “man” mean anything else, or does it affect anything else?

To ask these questions is not, as in the case of the poets of Stalin's court, to service false idols. It is not a service paid for by government silverware. The poems collected here did not bring talons for cars, subsequent square meters granted by the authorities of the residential space or a place on the honor stand. On the contrary, these are poems frequently occupied with environmental ostracism, poems written not for the request to get a certificate of political correctness, but for the request to give a certificate: a evidence of reality, a hard reality, a painful one, not a frosted one.

In this request the poets of various generations met – from Leszek Elektorowicz, peer and friend Herbert, to the younger by more than half a century Przemysław Dakowicz. Poets most recognized and little known. 1 could surely arrange an anthology of the poesy of “Smolensk” many times larger – due to the fact that authors writing from similar, awakened tragedy on April 10 request in Poland is not 50, but hundreds. And they don't compose for themselves, but they compose due to the fact that the substance they service is thousands, hundreds of thousands.

Their poems lead us through the desert. You can get lost on it, lose your orientation. Then these words come to the aid, which from the core of the Polish tradition he brings out in his shocking poem Wojciech Wencel: "Poland did not die until we died". erstwhile we hear the sound of the conscience jammer, Krzysztof Koehler's “An Answer” helps – who at the ceremony of the Presidential Couple in Krakow saw, for a moment, the nation, as it raised the flags – and could throw bitter and proudly at that time: “We are in Poland again”. erstwhile we see so many of our fellow citizens around us, fellow brothers who do not want to see, do not want to hear, do not want to speak, then it helps us to realize this phenomenon Przemysław Dakowicz in the dedicated memory of Anna Valentynowicz “Ismen Syndrom” – a description of 1 who, unlike her sister Antigon, is afraid to bury his brother, does not want to put himself in danger of power and will not see. Don't feel. Do not exceed the measure.” erstwhile we ourselves are weary, we lose religion in the ability to find the truth, then it does not let us to succumb to this temptation Roman Misiewicz with his persistent question “who”: “who blurs the clues / destroys the evidence of the versions multiply / lie by looking straight into the eyes / erstwhile it bothers us.” It does not let us to sleep in a chocholy dream-rutina the beautiful "street ballad" of Jan Pietrzak, who reminds us that to what happened on April 10, 2010 under Smolensk "Everyone must sing a message to himself. / Depends on what happens to Poland.” Marcin Wolski, in his poetry, recalling the best patterns of Marian Hemar, renews our hope, founded in Polish tradition and Polish culture: “Although the tiny Knight pride broke like a hennał, / he will proceed his past with millstone. And in the chronicles, memories, memoirs, legends, the dream of brave Poland, will be the dream of Kaczyński."

In these and in another poems, there is an image of reality, there is an effort to realize the meaning of the sacrifice, an effort to face tragedy – a test repeated in all generations that build up human culture. There is besides a informing against discouragement, there is hope. Here is the hidden message of all actual poetry: assistance on the way through the desert, which is around us and within ourselves. That's what poesy is for.

Only cognition of good and evil, their clear distinction, can lead us out of the moral desert. We see how bad she is. This poesy helps to see them with all the focus. But thanks to it too, thanks to its authors we can besides see the good. And go to him. This road leads through Smolensk. He can't miss it. It continues, through Krakowskie Przedmieście, on Wawel, to Poland.

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