Poets From Poland

"Poetry is the plough that turns up time in such a way that the abyssal strata of time, its black earth, appear on the surface. There are epochs, however, when mankind, not satisfied with the present, yearning like the ploughman for the abyssal strata of time, thirsts for the virgin soil of time. Revolution in art inevitably leads to Classicism, not because David reaped the harvest of Robespierre, but because that is what the earth desires."

"the word wanders freely around the thing, like the soul around an abandoned, but not forgotten body."

"Today a kind of speaking in tongues is taking place. In sacred frenzy poets speak the language of all times, all cultures. Nothing is impossible."

"the poet has no fear of recurrence and is easily intoxicated on Classical wine."

"The separation of Culture and the State is the most significant event of our revolution."

"Cultural values ornament the State, endowing it with color, form, and, if you will, even gender. Inscriptions on State buildings, tombs, and gateways insure the State against the ravages of time."

"Apples, bread, potatoes-from now on they will quench not only physical but spiritual hunger."

"Speed, the pace of the present, cannot be measured by subways or skyscrapers, but only by the cheerful grass thrusting itself forth from under city stones."

"As the circulation of translated literature increases, we can observe the growth of interest in language study among the Komsomol masses, among the working youth, and in the colleges. Just how young people undertake the study of foreign languages is of interest: they approach language learning with the triumphant spirit of a conqueror invading previously forbidden territory. Knowledge of languages is a mighty weapon in the hands of the ruling class. With the aid of this weapon the composition of the entire cultural present is counterfeited and world literature is falsified until it reaches the condition demanded by people of position."

"Why can't we shake things up, why can't these good translators be utilized in collective undertakings?"

"Every book should be an incentive to studying the language. Every book should provide at least some contact with the original, for example, a parallel text and a glossary. At present we are struggling to take the translation business away from the caste leader, for whom the mass reader is a fiction, an "easy mark" ignorant of foreign languages."

"The October Revolution could not but influence my work since it took away my "biography," my sense of individual significance. I am grateful to it, however, for once and for all putting an end to my spiritual security and to a cultural life supported by unearned cultural income... I feel indebted to the Revolution, but I offer it gifts for which it still has no need. The question about what a writer should be is completely incomprehensible to me: to answer it would be tantamount to inventing a writer, that is, to writing his works for him."

"Only in Russia poetry is respected – it gets people killed. Is there anywhere else where poetry is so common a motive for murder?"

"We live, but we do not feel the land beneath us, Ten steps away and our words cannot be heard."

"(Has a book ever brought you closer to another person, or come between you?) A friend once called “The Shadow of the Sun,” by Ryszard Kapuscinski, an “authentic” reportage voice on Africa. I disagreed. I think it is a fictional portrait masquerading as nonfiction, about an Africa that he wanted to see rather than one he actually saw. It misrepresents many practices and beliefs in different countries, and its many generalizations about “the African” are fatuous. To this, the friend said that it didn’t matter if he got the facts wrong because the book was really an allegory of communism. It was eye-opening for me, and made me see this friend differently, because of the paternalism in that opinion. If I were to write a nonfiction book riddled with inaccuracies about Europe and then insisted that it really was an allegory on military dictatorship in Nigeria, few would find that acceptable and fewer still would praise it as the authentic voice on Europe."

"Life is truly known only to those who suffer, lose, endure adversity and stumble from defeat to defeat."

"It is authority that provokes revolution....This occurs when a feeling of impunity takes root among the elite: We are allowed anything, we can do anything. This is a delusion, but it rests on a certain rational foundation. For a while it does indeed look as if they can do whatever they want. Scandal after scandal and illegality after illegality go unpunished. The people remain silent...They are afraid and do not yet feel their own strength. At the same time, they keep a detailed account of the wrongs, which at one particular moment are to be added up. The choice of that moment is the greatest riddle of history."

"Even though you can destroy a man, destroying him does not make him cease to exist. On the contrary, if I can put it this way, he begins to exist all the more. These are paradoxes no tyrant can deal with. The scythe swings, and at once the grass starts to grow back. Cut again and the grass grows faster than ever. A very comforting law of nature."

"The experience was an exciting one for me. It illustrated that writing was about risk—about risking everything. And that the value of the writing is not in what you publish but in its consequences. If you set out to describe reality, then the influence of the writing is upon reality."

"Now that we're alone we can talk prince man to man though you lie on the stairs and see no more than a dead ant."

"I turn to history not for lessons but to confront my experience with the experience of others and to win for myself a sense of responsibility for the state of the human conscience."

"Go for it is the only way to be accepted to the circle of cold skulls the circle of your forefathers: Gilgamesh Hector Roland defenders of the kingdom of no frontiers and of the city of ashes Be faithful Go"

"You survived not to live on your time is short, you have to give a proof of truth"

"And do not forgive indeed it is beyond your power to forgive in the name of those betrayed at dawn"

"Go where the others have gone, to the tenebrous limit for the golden fleece of void, your ultimate prize go upright among those who are on their knees among those turning their backs on and those fallen to dust."

"And now I won't be on any of them group photo (proud proof of my death in all literary weekly magazines in the world) when someone will say, look, you see - it's Zbyszek - pointing finger at a man struggling with a suitcase - but that's not it I'm someone else who isn't even from this industry there is no me and there is complete emptiness"

"Jeśli tematem sztuki będzie dzbanek rozbity mała rozbita dusza z wielkim żalem nad sobą to co po nas zostanie będzie jak płacz kochanków w małym brudnym hotelu kiedy świtają tapety"

"And if the City falls and one survives he shall carry the City within on the roads of exile he shall be the City"

"His poems, even in English, seem to me finer than anything currently being written by any English or American poet."

"The liver is not a gentleman."

"Adieu prince I have tasks a sewer project and a decree on prostitutes and beggar I must also elaborate a better system of prisons since as you justly said Denmark is a prison I go to my affairs This night is born a star named Hamlet We shall never meet what I shall leave will not be worth a tragedy It is not for us to greet each other or bid farewell we live on archipelagos and that water these words what can they do what can they do prince."

"But trying to stop all abortions is just one way the Vatican is trying to impose its sexual values across the world. It's a campaign that draws passion and motivation from the Pope from Poland, John Paul II, and a vision of womanhood rooted in his personal history. In Kalwaria, close to the Pope's home town. They're setting off on a burial, the burial of the Virgin Mary. 74 years ago, this ceremony helped shape the Pope's vision of womanhood. The effigy, carried miles to its final resting place. Out of devotion to the ultimate mother. For John Paul, the virgin was to be the image of the ideal woman, a mother to all, and to him when, aged 8, he lost his own mother."

"Imagine a land in which ideal love is a reality and ideal sex; simultaneous climax between a loving couple, and in this land all couples are married. No barriers to perfect self-giving; no barriers to childbirth; no condoms, IUDs or pills. Abortion is illegal too. This land does not exist, but these ideals do in the work and thought of Karol Wojtyla, now Pope John Paul II. This is a film about what happens when those ideals clash with reality."

"Poland proved a lightning rod for the unpopularity of Communist regimes, with the added ingredients of traditional hostility to Russia and a strong national Christian commitment. This was shown in 1979 when John Paul II, the Polish Pope elected in 1978, drew millions on his ‘pilgrimage’ to the country. John Paul was at once theologically highly conservative and determined to challenge Communism as an unwelcome excrescence, especially in Poland. While a Cardinal there, he had met opposition leaders in 1976, and his stance was important in a major shift from the earlier position of the Catholic hierarchy there. In the 1960s, this hierarchy had sought better relations with the regime, but now, under John Paul, there was to be no compromise with Marxism and, instead, an affirmation of the authority of the Church. The strength of Catholic devotion in Poland was shown in public religious services. In turn, via Bulgarian intermediaries, the KGB may have been involved in the attempted assassination of the Pope in Rome in 1981. Although far from on the same scale or as public, Christian commitment and activity was also seen elsewhere in the Communist Bloc. Indeed, in this period, the Council for Religious Affairs in the Soviet Union received frequent complaints on this head from local agents."

"John Paul had sought rapprochement with Islam, which he appeared to view as a strategic ally in the struggle for "family values" and post-Enlightenment thinking; during his pontificate, the Vatican had teamed up with Islamic governments at international human rights conferences to thwart European proposals for Third World birth control and other modernist evils."

"Don’t you think that the irresponsible behavior of men is caused by women?"

"the Church took it upon herself to draw attention to the unjust distribution of goods, not only between different social groupings but between different regions of the world. In fact, the gap became increasingly evident between the rich North, which was growing richer, and the poor South, which continued to be exploited and penalized in many ways even after the end of the colonial era. Instead of diminishing, the poverty of the South was constantly increasing. Such are the consequences of unbridled capitalism, which makes the rich ever richer while forcing the poor into conditions of growing degradation."

"Jesus came into the world to reveal the whole dignity and nobility of the search for God, which is the deepest need of the human soul, and to meet the search halfway."

"The disposition to listen to the Truth (that is, obedience) and the readiness to act in the Truth constitute the true dignity of the human person."

"Rasizm jest grzechem, który stanowi poważną obrazę Boga."

"I give thanks to God for the presence and help of cardinal Ratzinger, who is a trusted friend."

"Young people of every continent, do not be afraid to be the saints of the new millennium! Be contemplative, love prayer; be coherent with your faith and generous in the service of your brothers and sisters, be active members of the Church and builders of peace."

"How could man have such utter contempt for man? Because he had reached the point of contempt for God."

"When you wonder about the mystery of yourself, look to Christ who gives you the meaning of life. When you wonder what it means to be a mature person, look to Christ who is the fullness of humanity. And when you wonder about your role in the future of the world and of the United States, look to Christ."

"God assigns as a duty to every man the dignity of every woman."

"I have looked for you. Now you have come to me. And I thank you."

"The twentieth century was the great century of Christian martyrs, and this is true both in the Catholic Church and in other Churches and ecclesial communities."

"Could I forget that the event [Mehmet Ali Ağca’s assassination attempt] in Saint Peter's Square took place on the day and at the hour when the first appearance of the Mother of Christ to the poor little peasants has been remembered for over sixty years at Fatima in Portugal? For, in everything that happened to me on that very day, I felt that extraordinary motherly protection and care, which turned out to be stronger than the deadly bullet."

"As I stand here today before this incredible crowd, this faithful nation, we can still hear those voices that echo through history. Their message is as true today as ever. The people of Poland, the people of America, and the people of Europe still cry out "We want God." Together, with Pope John Paul II, the Poles reasserted their identity as a nation devoted to God. And with that powerful declaration of who you are, you came to understand what to do and how to live. You stood in solidarity against oppression, against a lawless secret police, against a cruel and wicked system that impoverished your cities and your souls. And you won. Poland prevailed. Poland will always prevail."

"Under John Paul II, disciplinary actions against dissident theologians and priests increased dramatically, and the theological arguments advanced to support celibacy and to reject women’s ordination, artificial contraception, abortion, and NRTS became more entangled. This interpenetration of theological arguments meant that the Church found itself embroiled in an escalating series of crises from the 1960s onward, as increasingly its views on sexual morality no longer coincided with secular views."