In August I had a short-term research fellowship from the New York Public Library. I spent nine days in New York City working in their Slavic and East European Collections, looking at anything by or about or tangentially related to Józef Czechowicz. You can read more about my work on their Researcher Spotlight.
At the end of that feature I mention the book Obraz współczesnej literatury polskiej, 1884-1933 [The Contemporary Polish Literature Scene, 1884-1933] by literary critic and historian Kazimierz Czachowski. There I describe the book as a “massive but incredibly fragile three-volume tome from the mid-1930s [that] included one brief but beautiful paragraph about Czechowicz that was written and published during his tragically short life.” That is only half of the story.
But first, the paragraph, with some minor orthographic updates:
W poezjach JÓZEFA CZECHOWICZA (ur. 1903; Kamień, 1927; Dzień jak codzień, 1930; Ballada z tamtej strony, 1932; Z błyskawicy, 1934) pod sztucznymi pozorami techniki awangardowej szeroka rozpiętość metafory ma rzetelne znamię świeżego poetyckiego widzenia. Zwięzłość i plastyka ekspresji, urywany, niepokojący rytm współczesności, mocno w rzeczywistości zakorzeniona bujność wyobraźni, szczerość bezpośrednich przeżyć i naturalne pragnienie prostoty wyznaczają zasadnicze składniki liryzmu Czechowicza, sugestywnie emocjonalnego. Liryzm to zabarwiony pesymizmem i dojmującym smutkiem, lecz bez melancholii. Jego subtelną nastrojowość przesłaniają, zapewne rozmyślnie, niekiedy aż zbyt odległe skojarzenia surrealistycznego obrazowania. Przeważają jednak spięcia o uderzającej sile nowego oddziaływania na myśl lub uczucie przez wyobraźnię. W ostatnich utworach Czechowicz przechyla się ku artystycznemu prymitywizmowi opartemu na wzorach ludowych. W ogóle wyzwala się z pod wpływów literackich, które zresztą i dotąd były raczej potrąceniem dla samodzielnego i szczerego liryzmu, choć wyrażającego się pod formą na pozór trudną, jak trudna się wydaje i nowa muzyka dopóki słuch się na tyle nie przyzwyczaj, aby odrazu ją pojmował.
And my provisional translation:
In the poetry of JÓZEF CZECHOWICZ (born 1903; Kamień, 1927; Dzień jak codzień, 1930; Ballada z tamtej strony, 1932; Z błyskawicy, 1934) beneath a contrived veneer of avant-garde techniques a broad range of metaphors has the solid mark of a fresh poetic vision. A conciseness and plasticity of expression, the broken, disquieting rhythm of modernity, the exuberance of an imagination firmly rooted in reality, a candidness of direct experiences, and a natural desire for simplicity constitute the basic elements of Czechowicz’s suggestively affective lyricism. A lyricism that’s tinged with pessimism and piercing sorrow but without melancholy. Sometimes, no doubt deliberately, the all-too-distant associations of surrealist imagery obscure its subtle moodiness. However, tensions concerning the gripping strength of new influence on thought or feeling through the imagination dominate. In his latest works Czechowicz leans toward an artistic primitivism based on folk models. He frees himself altogether from literary influences, which, up till now, in any case, were rather an obstruction for self-sufficient, sincere lyricism, though expressed within a seemingly difficult form, just as new music comes across as difficult until the ear gets used to it enough to immediately understand.
That last sentence is thorny af, and I finally abandoned it. Though I very much appreciate the analogy with new music, since I tend to listen to new music while translating: my Translatio playlist consists of works by Cage, Glass, Górecki, Pärt, Szymanowski, Jaar, Vine, Penderecki, Kaczmarek, and Preisner.
The Rose Reading Room has a small corral just behind the librarian’s desk where you are made to work if the books you request require monitoring. I had to sit there for only a couple of hours because some of the texts I’d requested were tiny micro-pocket collections of Czechowicz. You know you’ve made it as a poet if a publisher deems that your work necessitates a pocket edition for your on-the-go fan base. And these weren’t even back-pocket size books. They were more condom-pocket, or watch-pocket, size.
I had assumed that I would have to sit in the monitoring corral when I picked up Czachowski’s three-volume The Contemporary Polish Literature Scene, 1884-1933 because of its age, but I was allowed to sit at the tables instead. As soon as I opened the book and began thumbing through the index, I was horrified. It was as if every single page was no thicker than an onion skin, and every place on the page my fingers touched instantly dissolved, crumbling into minuscule flakes in front of me. I did my best to limit further destruction by slowly turning pages using sheets of paper instead of my hands, but even that method wasn’t perfect. I finally found what I needed: Volume III, pages 352-353, but how to get there without utterly annihilating the text before I got to it?
As soon as I found the passage I threw my hands up, not wanting to even slightly graze the pages. I photographed the paragraph and confirmed that the text was legible on my phone before slowly, irrevocably closing the book forever. In that momentous, immobile instant I was buried beneath one thought: I am probably the first person in several decades—and quite possibly the very last person—to glance inside this book. It was almost too much, and I could feel tears start to fill my eyes.
After returning my books to the reserve librarian I walked back to my table and was faced with the problem of deciding what to do with the tiny, flaky remains from a 90-year-old book. I couldn’t bring myself to discard them in the trash, so I swept them into my glasses case so I could give them a fitting burial at a later date.
