Polish Poetry

Polish poetry is one of the major ones in Europe. In spite of this fact however, it is almost absent from the great anthologies of the world’s heritage. The reason being not its alleged inferiority, but the lack of interest among the western Slavicists to study the language of the Poles. Poland is no longer an empire, so that acquiring its speech seems to be of no great advantage. Let alone reading its poetry.

Not belittling the splendor and merits of the Russian writers, it is only due to political coincidence that, of all the Slavic literatures, that of the Russians is the best known in the world today. It is widely known, though, that the first Russian poets worthy of the name imitated the prosody and genres which had been well-developed in Polish poetry at that time.

Translations of Polish classics (prose or poetry) are scarce and mostly, as far as Polish poetry is concerned at least, not so good at all. So, it should come as no surprise that there is no interest among the compilers of world’s anthologies to bother about the "shedded Polacks on the ice".

Polish poems are certainly not the best in the world and I am not blindly patriotic about them. My point is, however, to bring Polish poetry to the attetion of the global audience, so that the foreign readers know that Milosz and Szymborska (the Noble Prize winners) are not the pick of the crop.

I am far from claiming that my renderings are the best available. My efforts may but be regarded as yet another brick that helps build a better image of Polish poetry in the world.

Note: I am not a native speaker of English nor an expert on the language, so there might be a few grammar mistakes. Lexical lapses are also possible, though less so. Should you be an English native speaker, please point them out. Your remarks are invaluable.

Jarek Zawadzki
January 2005, Shenzhen, China
yarek@yeah.net