#Zagajewski

[aksamitna]

Bez milczenia nie byłoby muzyki. Życie we dwoje jest zapewne trudniejsze niż samotna egzystencja - podobnie żaglowiec na pełnym morzu z rozpostartymi żaglami jest trudniejszy do okiełznania niż ten sam statek drzemiący w porcie, ale przecież to dla wiatru, dla ruchu, buduje się szkunery, a nie dla próżnowania i beznamiętnej ciszy.

Rozmowa trwająca wiele lat zawiera w sobie godziny niechęci, niepokoju, nawet nienawiści, ale także czułość i głębokie porozumienie. Tylko w małżeństwie miłość i czas, odwieczni wrogowie, mogą stać się sojusznikami. Tylko miłość i czas, jeśli się pogodzą, pozwalają nam zobaczyć drugiego człowieka w jego tajemniczej, skomplikowanej istocie, rozwijającej się powoli i pewnie, jak nowe miasto na równinie lub wśród zielonych wzgórz. Zaczyna się od jednego tylko dnia, od radości i ślubowania, od pełnego chwały dnia spotkania, który jest jak wilgotne ziarno; potem przychodzą lata próby, pracy, niekiedy rozpaczy, gwałtownego olśnienia, szczęścia, i wreszcie wielkie drzewo o bujnym listowiu wyrasta ponad nami i rzuca kolosalny cień. Nikną w nim troski.

Adam Zagajewski, "Epitalamium"

[flakopancho]

[lapeaudelamemoire]

My father never went back to Lvov either. To "visit" the place where an unhealed wound gaped would be like visiting purgatory, like visiting volcanoes (their interiors), like setting up camp on the edge of a crater spewing flames. The word visit, so frivolous, lighthearted, swift as a windshield wiper on a rainy day, presupposes a speedy return. There and back, a picnic, a walk, and then home again, maybe in time for the evening news. But if what you're visiting is home, then what do you call it? Making a pilgrimage to your own memory, to something that doesn't exist—is that a visit?

Adam Zagajewski, Slight Exaggeration, tr. Clare Cavanagh

[apoemaday]

Try to Praise the Mutilated World

by Adam Zagajewski tr. Clare Cavanagh

Try to praise the mutilated world. Remember June’s long days, and wild strawberries, drops of wine, the dew. The nettles that methodically overgrow the abandoned homesteads of exiles. You must praise the mutilated world. You watched the stylish yachts and ships; one of them had a long trip ahead of it, while salty oblivion awaited others. You’ve seen the refugees heading nowhere, you’ve heard the executioners sing joyfully. You should praise the mutilated world. Remember the moments when we were together in a white room and the curtain fluttered. Return in thought to the concert where music flared. You gathered acorns in the park in autumn and leaves eddied over the earth’s scars. Praise the mutilated world and the grey feather a thrush lost, and the gentle light that strays and vanishes and returns.

[petaltexturedskies]

Adam Zagajewski, tr. by Clare Cavanagh, from "Try to Praise the Mutilated World”

[firstfullmoon]

Adam Zagajewski, “A Flame,” trans. Renata Gorczynski and Clare Cavanaugh

[havingapoemwithyou]

a flame by Adam Zagajewski

[woundgallery]

Adam Zagajewski (translated by Clare Cavanagh

[half-a-corpse-half-a-poet]

— Adam Zagajewski, from “Letter From a Reader,” Without End: New and Selected Poems

[seemoreandmore]

The world is the same as it always was, full of shadows and anticipation. -Adam Zagajewski

[ma-pi-ma]

Un gatto nero esce per salutarci

come per dire, guarda me

e non qualche vecchia chiesa romanica.

Io sono vivo.

Adam Zagajewski

[gennsoup]

I've seen sunflowers dangling their heads at dusk, as if a careless hangman had gone strolling through the gardens. September's sweet dust gathered on the windowsill and lizards hid in the bends of walls. I've taken long walks, craving one thing only: lightning, transformation, you.

Adam Zagajewski, Transformation

[lapeaudelamemoire]

She didn't need praise for the city she'd been missing for sixty years; she'd never gone back, of course, not even when things got easier, when the borders suddenly started to shrink like a cheap dress after washing.

Adam Zagajewski, Slight Exaggeration, tr. Clare Cavanagh

[apesoformythoughts]

“Try to praise the mutilated world. Remember June's long days, and wild strawberries, drops of rosé wine. The nettles that methodically overgrow the abandoned homesteads of exiles. You must praise the mutilated world. You watched the stylish yachts and ships; one of them had a long trip ahead of it, while salty oblivion awaited others. You've seen the refugees going nowhere, you've heard the executioners sing joyfully. You should praise the mutilated world. Remember the moments when we were together in a white room and the curtain fluttered. Return in thought to the concert where music flared. You gathered acorns in the park in autumn and leaves eddied over the earth's scars. Praise the mutilated world and the gray feather a thrush lost, and the gentle light that strays and vanishes and returns.”

— Adam Zagajewski: “Try to Praise the Mutilated World” [transl. Clare Cavanagh]

[simmyfrobby]

7am on a saturday so i might as well admit to the fact that at some point this past year my entire life’s purpose became to make other people care as much about poetry as i do and im not sure how that came to be but it’s where we are

[firstfullmoon]

Yes, I think it is a good description: poetry amplifies, exaggerates, puts emphasis on things and feelings, on thoughts and dreams that go almost unnoticed in everyday life. Amplifies them and stops them, makes them immobile so that we can freeze contemplating them. And it’s probably totally impossible to live like that, to have so much attention for detail in our days, which fly over our heads like supersonic jets. On the other hand, no, it’s not a good description in the sense that actually our true life is more present in poetry (art) than in these hasty days. Poetry gives us back life as it really is, as it should be experienced, in its grandeur and in its misery. So perhaps we should be saying not that “poetry is exaggeration” but “life as we know it is diminished, a bit crippled,” regarded through the lens of litotes. Life is understatement; poetry doesn’t exaggerate.

— Adam Zagajewski, from “Slight Exaggeration: An Interview with Adam Zagajewski”