Polish and Russian poets and poetry

[Senna Jawa]

Angeline has asked me so I have decided to open this thread. Let it be chaotic, let with the time passing the information be more and more complete (even with the help from Google), and let's hope that some time from now we will end up with a post or two which will have a reference value for us.

Just to start, let me mention some poems and names, at this time without any dates, let me just get started.

Polish poetry starts with an old poem "Bogurodzica dziewica ...". Then for a long time not much is happening, then you get quite a good poet Mikolaj Rej, who was writing in Polish (in those days educated people were writing in Latin, not in their native language). And soon there was a truly great poet, recognized also outside Poland, Jan Kochanowski. He was writing in Polish and in Latin (and perhaps in Italian too? I don't know). In particular his chess poem was seriously studied in Russia. One of the pearls of his work are "Treny"--poems written after his young daughter (still a child) died. That was Renaissance era. Then there were poets of the Enlightenment era (Oświecenie).

Next comes romanticism. First you get a very talented poet Malczewski (famous for his poetic nowel "Maria"). He influenced others, among them Adam Mickiewicz, considered by many the greatest Polish poet (wieszcz narodowy!). You may read his poetic novel "Pan Tadeusz" in English translation by Kenneth R. Mackenzie, published by Hippocrene Books, Inc., ISBN 0-7818-0033-1. If you can spare some $20+shipping then it would be well spent mmoney (or get it in your local bookstore). UNESCO (?) made the 100th anniversary of Mickiewicz death to be his year, Mickiewicz's year.

A bit younger and competing with Mickiewicz was Juliusz Słowacki, who too was considered "wieszcz narodowy". He was lyrical, many people like him more than Mickiewicz but Mickiewicz's craft was superior, he understood better than Słowacki what poetry is about. There were more romantic Polish poets but finally there was a great-great and very original poet, Cyprian Kamil Norwid. His poetry was almost completely lost. Some of it was recovered accidentally. Norwid was a profound thinker, and the voice of his poetry is that of a thinker. The very early poems (sonnets) by Norwid sounded a bit like Mickiewicz but soon he got his own voice, very light, very delicate, if you think about it. Otherwise you may even feel that it is almost prose. If you read non-sonnet poetry by Shakespeare than you may get an idea of Mickiewicz's voice, except that Mickiewicz was not crude like Shakespeare.

Mickiewicz was a contemporary of Russian Pushkin. They met, they were friends for some time. In their circles they even shared their lovers. I don't mean Pushkin (I never paid much attention to this aspect of their biographies, perhaps I should ), but Mickiewicz certainly had an experience like this in Russia.

Oh, I forgot, this is Literotica. Also, so many naive authors are so proud of sex revolutions in poetry... Polish poets Morsztyn(?) and Fredro wrote pornography long time ago. Fredro lived during the romantic era but he was no romantic. He is known mainly for his outstanding plays, but also for his rhymed porno.

Mickiewicz had an exceptional and rare gift of improvisation. Pushkin was kind of envious of Mickiewicz in this respect, or I should say that he was a little bit sad that he didn't posses such a gift -- Pushkin was a very nice and fun loving person, while he was very serious about literature (Mickiewicz and Norwid too).

Mickiewicz and Pushkin have somewhat similar position in the Polish and Russian poetry respectively.

I am soooo sleepy and tired, I need to stop now. So let me add a bunch of XX century names:

Polish: Leśmian, Tuwim, Czechowicz, Staff, Gałczynski, Baczyński, Borowski, Różewicz, Świrszczyńska, Miłosz, Szymborska, Lipska, Herbert, Szymanowicz, Wojaczek, ...
Russian: Yesenin, Mayakovsky (Majakovskij etc ), Mandelshtam (Mandelstam), Cvetaeva, Akhmatova, Brodsky, ...

and many others. Well, Brodsky is partly an American poet too. I think that the following poem was written by him directly in English:

A Song

I wish you were here, dear,
I wish you were here.
I wish you sat on the sofa
and I sat near.

The handkerchief could be yours,
the tear could be mine, chin bound.
Though it could be, of course,
the other way around.

I wish you were here, dear,
I wish you were here.
I wish we were in my car,
and you'd shift the gear.

We'd find ourselves elsewhere,
on an unknown shore.
Or else we'd repair
to where we've been before.

I wish you were here, dear,
I wish you were here.
I wish I knew no astronomy
when stars appear,

when the moon skims the water
that sighs and shifts in its slumber.
I wish it were still a quarter
to dial your number.

I wish you were here, dear,
in this hemisphere,
as I sit on the porch
sipping a beer.

It's evening; the sun is setting,
boys shout and gulls are crying.
What's the point of forgetting
if it's followed by dying?

-- Joseph Brodsky
​

I could say so much about this beautiful-beautiful poem.

Regards,

Senna Jawa​

PS. I am not well read, it's not in my makeup.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

Senna, I have a question for you.

One of my favorite definitions of poetry is from Babette Deutch:

A poem cannot be paraphrased without injury to its meaning.

I take that to mean that each word in a poem is chosen very specifically and carefully, and is defensible as better than any other possible word that might have been chosen. That strikes me as a goal that is strongly affected by the root language in which the poem is written.

So given that definition, is it even possible to accurately and completely translate a poem into another language? Even if a person were brought up thoroughly bilingual, with the same deep knowledge of both languages, would it not be a different poem after translation? Maybe better, maybe worse, maybe close, but in essence a new poem?

Just curious about your take on this. Honestly, I'd love to see your translation of the Mayakovwfskieiyyi piece that was posted for the challenge this week. I suspect it would be different from the one that's up.

bj

 

[Senna Jawa]

Senna, I have a question for you.

One of my favorite definitions of poetry is from Babette Deutch:

A poem cannot be paraphrased without injury to its meaning.

This is a golden thought (aphorism) rather than a definition. I am impressed by it all the same. A definition of an object (ideally) should do three things;

1. it should be in a rough agreement with what is intended;
2. describe the object completely;
3. distinguish it from any other object.

Actually, the third point is a consequence of the second one, but never mind; it's still good to emphasize it.

Naively, one may rephrase the first condition as "definition should be true". Deutch's statement, like majority of good aphorisms, is false (only fractionally true). This is because aphorisms are valued for its brevity and shock effect. Add one word, change another, and the statement becomes true but a bit boring:

A poem cannot be slightly paraphrased without suffering injury
​

The Deutch's statement is a profound observation but it's not a definition--it fails to satisfy each of the above three requirements.

I take that to mean that each word in a poem is chosen very specifically and carefully, and is defensible as better than any other possible word that might have been chosen. That strikes me as a goal that is strongly affected by the root language in which the poem is written.

Indeed, this is often the case, most of the time (each time to a different degree).

So given that definition, is it even possible to accurately and completely translate a poem into another language? Even if a person were brought up thoroughly bilingual, with the same deep knowledge of both languages, would it not be a different poem after translation? Maybe better, maybe worse, maybe close, but in essence a new poem?

Your question is almost rhetoric, because you know very well that in the case of many wonderful poems it is not possible to provide exact translation. This is why Boleslaw Lesmian can be appreciated (till now) only in Polish. A very serious poetry fanatic should know Leśmian and just must learn Polish. It will be like this until there will show up a translating genius or until a number of talented poets will put a great effort into presenting Leśmian to Anglo-Saxon public. On the other hand, Zbigniew Herbert is rendered in English very well. And there are at least five translators (three groups), who do it very well. How come?

Because Deutch's observation is sharp but, as aphorisms tend to be, it's more about paradox than about completeness. Let's start with the English-English situation. You may have two and more equally wonderful poems, which are dramatically different but have the same meaning.

Just curious about your take on this. Honestly, I'd love to see your translation of the Mayakovwfskieiyyi piece that was posted for the challenge this week. I suspect it would be different from the one that's up.

Great poems are like the top points of orbits, or the top points of mountains. If you select a point near the top point, then it will be lower. Thus you cannot modify a perfect poem without a damage. However, you may select the top point on a different mountain; and you may have a completely different poem from a given one, which says the same things (not perfectly the same but close enough).

So, if you have this situation with English-English then you may have it also with English-Polish or Russian-English etc.

This analogy, as any analogy, is only partial. I just wanted to say that you need to go to a different mountain, which may have different meaning under different circumstances.

Great poems have two aspects to them , different poems in different proportion. These two aspects make poetry, they are equally important for poetry. However, in a single poem, the proportion may be like 10% to 90% or vice versa.

One dimension of poetry is transcendental and robust. It works in the abstract domain of proportions, surprise, harmony and tension of ideas, .. Also in the dealing with the eternal questions like Nature, human emotions, ... This dimension of poetry survives the passing time, and it survives the crossing of the geographis and national boundaries. These things you may translate with relative ease.

The other dimension of poetry is fragile, dependent on the nuances of the given language, on its melody, on the local traditions and symbols, on the habits and social style of the given group mof peopple, which my be unlike others, on their social conditions.

Herbert's poetry is more in the transcendental dimension. Leśmian's has equal transcendental values, possibly even more transcendental (less history dependent) but his poetry is deeply rooted in Polish language. His language actually is very natural, which is not understood by many critics and poets, who are fooled by Lesmian's neologisms. Here is the situation:

1. Leśmian avoids clever words, educated words, scientific or newspaper jargon, engineering jargon, any jargon. His language relates to the Nature, and as a rule it avoids the city;
2. Leśmian choses natural but old words, from the very root of the language;
3. Leśmian's new words (neologisms) sound like they always belonged to the language (except for the words which turn nonexistence into existence--they still sound very Polish but they do not sound common anymore, obviously).
4. When Leśmian introduces a short, one-syllable new word, it does more than to serve just the given phrase. It often brings additional meanings which integrate with another one or more parts of the poem. The interplay of the sounds and the meanings is wonderful. (It takes an alert reader to catch and enjoy such integrated compositions, but readers love Lesmian poetry even if they get only one tenth of what there is, even when they are not connoisseurs; I believe that readers feel such things subconsciously or else poetry is meaningless).

Once you understand the nature of the strength of Leśmian poetry, you have a chance to create poems in English which will be artistically equivalent (instead of exactly the same) to the originals. It will be still very-very hard. Lesmian had beautiful rhymes, great and sometimes intricate melodic/rhythmic patterns, ... o-lala-la-lala. And, you know, there are the well known things like the mood, radiance, humor, sometimes simple naive tone, charm, ...

I know of only one collection of translations of Leśmian, done by someone who wrote her Ph.D. thesis about Leśmian. She has some poetic skills but she doesn't understand Leśmian at all, as witnessed by the invented by her title of her collection:

Mythematics
and Extropy
​

Thus she made up some neologisms, and she was happy that it is just like Leśmian, especially that you hear "Myths" in this title. But Leśmian would not touch such unnatural neologisms with a ten foot pole. You hear in them mathematics and entropy (and "Ex" for "exist"?). Forget it.

Best regards,

 

[Senna Jawa]

Senna, [...] I'd love to see your translation of the Mayakovwfskieiyyi piece that was posted for the challenge this week. I suspect it would be different from the one that's up.

bj

I can show my good will and respect only by offering lousy excuses. It's been 40 years since I lost my books of Russian poetry, including by Majakowski (I got some new books but not Majakowski; well, his poems are on Internet). Russian is natural to me but my vocabulary has shrunk horribly (it was never extensive).

To translate is to me like breaking and putting together my own bones without any pain killer.

***

Some of the later Leśmian poems were simple. I asked Marek Lugowski and Tom Wachtel to translate two of them, and I did too. So, including also translations published by Sandra Celt, we had three translations of one of the poems, and four of another. Together they were giving a pretty good idea of the two Leśmian's originals. Unfortunately the portal RedFrog where I posted them went down, and I don't have them anymore.

Going back to Majakowski. In his revolutionary poems he used onomatopoeia, his words sounded like staccato of bullets from an automatic weapon--tra-ta-ta-ta!, and they had enormous energy. But nothing forced, crude or vulgar.

 

[Angeline]

Dear Mr. Ji

Here is a poem of Brodsky's I've always loved:

Seven Strophes
Joseph Brodsky

I was but what you'd brush
with your palm, what your leaning
brow would hunch to in evening's
raven-black hush.

I was but what your gaze
in that dark could distinguish:
a dim shape to begin with,
later - features, a face.

It was you, on my right,
on my left, with your heated
sighs, who molded my helix
whispering at my side.

It was you by that black
window's trembling tulle pattern
who laid in my raw cavern
a voice calling you back.

I was practically blind.
You, appearing, then hiding,
gave me my sight and heightened
it. Thus some leave behind

a trace. Thus they make worlds.
Thus, having done so, at random
wastefully they abandon
their work to its whirls.

Thus, prey to speeds
of light, heat, cold, or darkness,
a sphere in space without markers
spins and spins.

Joseph Brodsky

 

[champagne1982]

I can understand why you'd like that Brodsky poem. It's a joy to read, sensual and emotional at once. Thanks for sharing it Angeline.

 

[Angeline]

I can understand why you'd like that Brodsky poem. It's a joy to read, sensual and emotional at once. Thanks for sharing it Angeline.

You're welcome Champ. I read it first maybe five or six years ago, and it always stayed with me it's so vivid.

 

[thepaleeyes]

this post is wonderfully enlightening.. i have been in the dark about Polish Poetry for some time... thanks Senna..

 

[Angeline]

So Senna (and whoever wants to respond), I am very interested in considering your various explanations that Mayakovsky's A Cloud in Trousers is not "angry." I'm sure you read (and perhaps dismissed) Koch's and Farrell's description of the poem as being "a protest" and "full of rage." I tend to agree with you, but I think the truth lies somewhere between what they said--probably for expediency because the book, Sleeping on the Wing, is certainly not focused on putting any of the poetry in a cultural or historical context--and the words we've been using to describe the poet's voice: exhuberant, boastful, funny, ironic..

I have such limited knowledge about Eastern Europe in the decade or so around the Russian Revolution. And I was an English major in an American university, so I learned about dead white men from the United Kingdom, America, France and Italy, a little. Not a very well-rounded education, but oh well. It's paid for. And I would certainly like to learn more if for no other reason than that my grandfather came to American from Lodz around 1914. Anyway, what I do know of Mayakovsky's world I would sort of liken to America in the late 1960s. The 1968 Democratic National Convention had riots, but also a lot of "street theater," which was the politcal statement of Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin and the Yippies. They were certainly connected to Western poets like Ginsberg and Burroughs, and saw a lot of their street theater as political poetry/drama. I sort of picture Mayakovsky and his companions (whoever they were) creating their poetry with a similar sort of mindset. Does that make sense? And Mayakovsky was 23 when he wrote the poem, yes? It sounds very adolescent, that poem, the voice of youthful rebellion.

So it's exhuberent rage. Theatrical.

 

[champagne1982]

Indeed, Mayakovski(or however it's spelled) sounds like poetry for slam without the mic.

As an aside, if you can spell it, you can use it when stopped by people of authority... just sound convincing,

"What's your name, young lady?"

"Am I getting a ticket officer?"

"I was thinking about just a warning... keep up the chat and I'll cite you..."

"Oh! Yessir! That's Anya Mayakowski."

"Spell your last name, please."

"Yes, it's M-a-y-a-k-o-w-s-k-i."

 

[Angeline]

Indeed, Mayakovski(or however it's spelled) sounds like poetry for slam without the mic.

As an aside, if you can spell it, you can use it when stopped by people of authority... just sound convincing,

"What's your name, young lady?"

"Am I getting a ticket officer?"

"I was thinking about just a warning... keep up the chat and I'll cite you..."

"Oh! Yessir! That's Anya Mayakowski."

"Spell your last name, please."

"Yes, it's M-a-y-a-k-o-w-s-k-i."

When my grandfather went through Ellis Island as a Polish immigrant, they gave him an Americanized last name. Depending on who in the family you ask, you get Yusnofsky, Yusnovsky, Yasnovski. and on and on. Not that any of them used any of it. In fact the last name I write under was my paternal grandfather's name before they shortened it to Americanize it. Off the boat and into the melting pot.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

Swedes have no such problems. Get a Swedish man's name (there are four: Carl, Sven, Peder and Olaf.) Put -son after it. And there ya go: the entire phonebook of Minneapolis/St. Paul.

bj

 

[Angeline]

Swedes have no such problems. Get a Swedish man's name (there are four: Carl, Sven, Peder and Olaf.) Put -son after it. And there ya go: the entire phonebook of Minneapolis/St. Paul.

bj

Your forgot Liarson!

 

[unpredictablebijou]

Your forgot Liarson!

We're all sons of Liars. Goes without saying.
The rest of the system is pretty easy too: just take the father's name and use it as the middle name for the son. Olaf Carl, Peder Olaf, Sven Peder, and so on, and the cycle continues...

Not known for innovation, that's us.

bj

 

[Liar]

Swedes have no such problems. Get a Swedish man's name (there are four: Carl, Sven, Peder and Olaf.)

Peder and Olaf would likely be Danish. Just sayin'.

And that's Karl with a K, thankyouverymuch. Keep your anglofications to yourself.

Hmph.

 

[unpredictablebijou]

Peder and Olaf would likely be Danish. Just sayin'.

And that's Karl with a K, thankyouverymuch. Keep your anglofications to yourself.

Hmph.

yeah. we're all really different too, and obviously we get all offended if you mistake one barrel-shaped, giant-moustached, blond race for another. *grin*

And it's C in my family, anyway, all the way back to the homeland. Guess we were attempting creativity... *snort* I can prove we're Swedes, too: my grandparents' first date was to the Smelt Wrestling bouts. He said you could always tell the tourists, cause they sat in the front row.

have we hijacked Senna's thread enough yet?

as an apology, I'll offer this: I really liked the whole explanation of the phrase "a cloud in trousers" - that's the sort of explanation really required if one is to dig down properly into translated poetry.

bj