Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Jan Twardowski. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Jan Twardowski. Sort by date Show all posts

Friday, 25 March 2022

Serious Angel - Jan Twardowski translated by Sarah Lawson and Malgorzata Koraszewska - Waxing Series No. 3

Serious Angel
Waxing Series No. 3
Sarah Lawson (Translator)
Malgorzata Koraszewska (Translator)
ISBN 9781904556176
2003


I picked up this volume for a few reasons. First Jan’s grandniece recommended his poetry to me. She is the confirmation sponsor of my oldest daughter. Second our parish has been staffed by Polish Pallottine Fathers and I want to pass the book on to our priest. And third just from the bit I gleamed about Father Twardowski trying to track down some of his work in English was inspiring. I wish more of his works were available in translation. This book was issued in a limited edition run of 350 copies. And I am very thankful I was able to track one down. The description of this volume is:

“Jan Twardowski, Poland's best-known poet, can finally be read in English thanks to this selection of translated poems. As a parish priest currently living and working in Warsaw, his poems are, not surprisingly, about religion, but in a non-traditional way. The approach is often a wry, oblique one, based on real experience and humor, rather than on dry theological premises. Waxwing Series.”

The introduction to this volume begins with these words:

“Jan Twardowski (1915-) is the best-loved poet in Poland. Even People who do not usually read poetry light up at the mention of his name and quote you a few lines. He has been writing and publishing prolifically since 1959, and his books have sold in the hundreds of thousands, yet he has been almost completely unknown in the English-speaking world.”

And further on:

“When he writes about death, love, and loss, he writes frankly as a man who has experienced them himself and understands the pain of others. His poems are simple – at least on the surface – and full of concrete images and startling juxtapositions.”

Also:

“Father Twardowski’s wry humour and simplicity may almost make you forget that he is often writing about the most profound mysteries of the Christian faith. He tackles the great subjects of human life and gets to the emotional essence of them.”

The poems in this collection are:

Sunt Lacrimaew Rerum
No
At the Tail End
Request
He Looked
Overheard and Noted Down
The World
Why
Trees and Non-Believers
I do not Fabricate
Humble
Explanation
When Great Art is too Great
Words
The Absent One Is
A Childless Angel
About a Sparrow
About the Little Ones
I am Afraid of Your Love
Nothing More
Before a Journey
A Serious Angel
About Pain
Ant Dragon-Fly Ladybird
The Certainty of Uncertainty
Saint Nitwit
I Trusted the Road
Happiness
A Hare Turns White

I worked my way through these poems the day the book arrived. Then later I went back through and read some randomly. It is an excellent collection of poems. And With only one other volume available in English it leaves an ache in my heart. 

     Why

     Why
     did you create
     our joy, anxiety,
     our despair and wit,
     our happiness, unhappiness
     out of nothing

     Humble

     God omnipotent but so humble

     He is everywhere but seen nowhere
     He is hanging on to the cross with both hands

     pure because of having everything He has nothing 
                                        For Himself

     He hears patiently that He will be of no further use

     only the Almighty can be so small

     still they say to Him out of spite
     that He has a Jew for a Son

     About Pain

     What pain can change into 
     into anger into stamping foot
     into an open book closed slowly
     into a prayer
     private crying directly to the pillow
     a letter written five times incoherent and nonsensical
     silence at the table
     pacing up and down around the truth
     touching your lonely mouth with a teaspoon
     into something impossible – still not the last
     into the same love again
     taking a long time to end

     so allow us Mother
     let the pain continue

Those are three of the poems that grabbed me most during my first read through. This is an excellent collection of poetry. I am thankful the name Jan Twardowski was mentioned to me. And will keep my eyes out for more of his works to be translated into English. An excellent collection. Well worth the read if you can track it down. According to Goodreads Jan Twardowski has 90 works, most are in Polish, two translated into English, and a few translated into Spanish. If you can read him in the original Polish or other translated languages based on my reading of these poems I would recommend you give his works a try.

Note: This book is part of a series of reviews: 2022 Catholic Reading Plan! 


Books by Jan Twardowski in English:
Kiedy Mowisz When You Say (bilingual edition)
Country Bumpkins Move to Paris: Letters Home 1970 to 1972 (Editor)
Country Bumpkins Move to London: Letters Home 1979 to 1983 (editor)
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Friday, 1 April 2022

Kiedy mówisz When You Say - Jan Twardowski

Kiedy mówisz - When You Say
Translators:
Stanislad Baranczak
Clare Cavagnah
Zovia Blaszczyh
Myrna Garanis
Malgorzata Koraszewska
Sarah Lawson 
Anna Mioduchowska
Maya Peretz
ISBN 9788308039717
ISBN 8308037577


This is the second collection of poetry by Jan Twardowski that I have been able to track down in English. And I believe there are only the two. Which after reading these two I consider a great pity. I picked up these volumes for a few reasons. First Jan’s grandniece recommended his poetry to me. She is the confirmation sponsor of my oldest daughter. Second our parish has been staffed by Polish Pallottine Fathers and I want to pass a copy of the book on to our priest. Third just from the bit I gleamed about Father Twardowski trying to track down some of his work in English was inspiring. And finally because the first volume I read, Serious Angel, was an excellent read. I wish more of his works were available in translation. This book was according to the publishers site, has been through at least 4 editions and printings. And I am very thankful I was able to track one down. The description of this volume is:

“A selection of the poems of Father Jan Twardowski, a creator of religious poetry full of spiritual order and simplicity, valued by readers.

Selection of poems by father Jan Twardowski, a poet admired for his spiritual peace and simplicity of his religious poetry.”

The authors note at the end of the volume states:

“I sometimes ask myself these three questions: Who am I writing? To Whom am I writing? What do I think of my own poetry?

I do not keep a journal. My experiences, emotions, meetings with the world and with people are recorded in my poems.

Poems are a kind of conversation, in which the author is trying to convey some of his personal experience of the world. I am writing as if I were speaking to a close friend – for me, a poem is an attempt to get to in touch with another person. I would like to get through to everybody out there, and I am pleased that my poems are also appreciated by people living outside the Polish sphere, who understand them through their own language.

As a priest, I live in two different worlds at a time – in the external one, which the media present as contaminated, false, grisly and governed by human sin, and in the internal one, which is defined by people’s confessions and avowals. I know  that a man who parts company with God is in torment. Both believers and non-believers have a cross to bear. 

I constantly strive to write better. In Today’s world, we constantly come across work, often by the most renowned minds of our time, which is contaminated with despair, with relativism, with lack of faith, with materialism, with postmodernism. In this world, a religious poem might seem weak, too muffled. Yet the unheeded readers are out there, those who are looking for hope, truth, authenticity, and do not follow the day’s fashions. I am trying to speak faith in this world devoid of love. 

Poems redeem that which has been trampled upon. They contribute what is human and heartfelt to a computerised, technicised world, what has not been contaminated by hatred, envy, and bickering. Poems bring along orderliness and harmony. They purify today’s reality.

There is a lack of religious poems today, and that need is revealed by the very fact that it has been suggested to publish some of them.

I do not like to provide ready interpretations of my writing, and leave the judgement to the reader. The selection proposed in this volume is and excursion through the redeemed world of mine, in which suffering need not be a misfortune, but rather a test of faithfulness towards a mystery, and death is an encounter with God, who is love.”

This volume is an excellent collection of 71 poems, of which only 7 had previously been published in English. I read through this collection over a few mugs of coffee. A couple of times I thought about some of the poems I read previously in Serious Angel, and one in particular struck me because of the great differences in translation between the two versions:

From this volume:

Faithless Trees

One by one all the trees non-believers,
birds refuse to study religion
the dog rarely goes to church
they really don’t know anything
and see how obedient!

insects under the tree bark know nothing of the gospels
even the white caraway so meet in the pasture
ordinary field stones
tears plowing the skin 
have never heard of Saint Francis
and see how poor

the stars refuse to hear my sermons
so does the humble lily of the valley, all too familiar, alone
the peaceful mountains that, like faith, keep on
love with a heart condition
and see how pure

The version from Serious Angel:

Trees Are Non Believers

Every single tree is a non-believer
birds do not learn religion at all
a dog very seldom goes to church
they really know nothing
yet so obedient

insects under bark do not know the gospel
even white caraway most silent along the path
common field stones
like crooked tears on a face
do not know Franciscians
yet so poor

righteous stars do not want to listen to my sermon
lilies-of-the-valley on the edge therefore lonely
all mountains quiet and as patient as faith various loves with cardiac defects 
yet so pure

There are similarities between the two translations but even based on titles a different feel. And yet both are wonderful reads. I do prefer the second though. The translators names are at the end of each poem. The team of translators is:  Stanislad Baranczak, Clare Cavagnah, Zovia Blaszczyh, Myrna Garanis, Malgorzata Koraszewska, Sarah Lawson, Anna Mioduchowska, and Maya Peretz. In the publishers note we ae informed that the selections span from 1937 to the year 2000. Most are drawn from the source volumes. And the 7 that previous appeared in English we are provided the sources. There are many excellent poems in this volume. I picked my 5 favourites to share as a sampling, they are:

Learn How To Wonder

In church learn how to wonder,
that the Holy Host is so small
it could hide within the little hands of the girl in white shortest of them all

yet before it crowds sink to their knees,
burst out crying, confess,

that boys with berry-black tongues, shirtless
to spite grandmothers, rush
through the church’s half-open door
and, awed at the church’s solemnity,
suddenly hush.

And think – how astonishing 
that God was once not a king,
but a child, with a mother, like us

So many mysteries, dogmas,
martyrs, sinners like Judas,
and yet always new believers

That one, without a single prayer,
can have a change of heart
and simply believe in Him
from all this wonderment

About A Sparrow

I don’t know how to write about church
about the prayer tents over masses and altars
about the clock that devours us
about the saint with his hair clipped like grass
about windows that toss butterflies
into the house: small multi-coloured ships
about moths whose dark breath blackens candles
about the eye of Providence
about Holy Mother’s hair of warm wind
about those who are sorry even before they sin

but about someone 
hiding in the shadows
who suddenly sticky with tears and hot like July
walks away transformed into the tender heart of a violin

and about you unruly sparrow
who stunned with grace
fell headlong
into the holy water

Explanation

I did not come to convert you
and anyway all the wise sermons have fled from my head
I was stripped of all shine long ago
like a hero in slow motion
I won’t pester you 
with what you think of Merton
I won’t jump around during discussion
like a turkey with a red wattle on its nose
I won’t grow handsome like a drake in October
I won’t dictate tears that will confess to everything
I won’t spoon holy theology into your ear

I’ll simply sit beside you
and confide my secret
that I, a priest
trust God like a child

Quail

Your call is always loudest
at dawn and at sunset
isn’t it true that there are only two pure moments
the early bright one and the one at dark
when God gives day and when He takes it away
when someone wanted me and when I’m no longer needed
when someone loved me and when I’m left alone
when I’m being born when I die
those two seconds that always come
one light the other dark
so honest they’re both naked
so beyond us we no longer are

When You Say

Don’t cry in your letter
don’t write that you’ve been kicked by fate
there is no situation on earthy without a way out
when God shuts the door – He opens the window
breath out and look
from the clouds come falling
small great misfortunes needed for happiness
and from simple things learn calm
forget that you are when you say that you love

That final one is obviously the title piece. This is an excellent collection of poetry spanning much of his career. I am thankful the name Jan Twardowski was mentioned to me. And will keep my eyes out for more of his works in the future to be translated into English. This is an excellent collection. It is well worth the read if you can track it down. And I hope the poems I sampled inspire you in your own examination of the world, and maybe to give this volume a try.

Note: This book is part of a series of reviews: 2022 Catholic Reading Plan! 

Books by Jan Twardowski in English:
Kiedy Mowisz When You Say (bilingual edition)
Country Bumpkins Move to Paris: Letters Home 1970 to 1972 (Editor)
Country Bumpkins Move to London: Letters Home 1979 to 1983 (editor)
…
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Monday, 3 January 2022

List of Favorite Books 2022

Favorite Books 2022

(Note: this list will grow and be updated through out the year.)


...


I started keeping track of the books I finished reading in October of 1995, and movies watched in January of 1996. and Catholic Books by year since 2016. I have lists for:

I also do a Top Ten List of books each quarter and for the year. They can be found here. I was also asked to pick a Top Ten Catholic Books I have read, you can find that list here (and occasionally I add a note when I come across something exceptional.)




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