On January 12 the National Book Critics Circle announced, among 5 poetry nominees for the 2007 awards, a volume of newly translated poems by Tadeusz Różewicz, entitled simply New Poems. It’s a terrific book that brings Różewicz’s three latest volumes under one cover. The poems, as far as I can tell (having no Polish), are beautifully translated by Bill Johnston; at least they make beautiful poems in English!

Here’s an example—one that makes so many kindly gestures and moves at such a relaxed pace that I was utterly surprised to find myself choked up at the end. Maybe because I’m destined for the fate of Mr. Eminowicz!

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THE MYSTERY OF THE POEM

once somewhere
long ago
I read a poem
by Eminowicz
whose first name
I subsequently forgot

this was before the war

then

for half a century
I never encountered
his poetry

he would come to mind
every few years
then return to oblivion

Chess?

yes I read the poem
in “Pion” magazine

Chess? not Chess
Chess
I think it was Chess the poem

rattled about in my head
like a death-watch beetle
(that was all I needed!)

two years ago
I found myself in Kraków
with Czesław Miłosz
in Ludwik Solski’s Dressing Room

Mrs. Renata (this was her idea)
was asking us questions
about poetry youth the occupation
and women (laughter)
the topic was our love poetry

all at once I digressed and asked
do you remember the poet Eminowicz

Miłosz did

“Eminowicz? his first name was Ludwik”

later we talked about Staff and Fik
Czechowicz Przyboś Ważyk

a year passed
I was looking through Extracts from Useful Books
and on page 207 I found a poem
by Ludwik Eminowicz “At Noon”
strange poet
strange poem neither good nor gad
the vanishing poet
lived 1880-1946
I rush headlong . . . the roiling water golden
the sky suspended from a burning frame . . .

I rush headlong

Mr. Ludwik Mr. Eminowicz
wait up
don’t hurry so
don’t run away
from us
into a fragile immortality
in some reference book
or anthology

in October 2000
I was at the Frankfurt Book Fair
(Frankfurt um Main)
eight hundred publishers
or maybe eight thousand publishers
were exhibiting a hundred thousand new titles
a million books
“the pope of German literature and criticism”
put in an appearance
five hundred poets (of both sexes)
read their poems
ja ja lesen macht schön
(schreiben mach häßlich)

but the greatest success
was Boris Yeltsin with his bestseller
and with champagne vodka and caviar

I was there too with a small volume

I drank a glass of red wine
with Leszek Kołakowski

I read poems with Miłosz
Nike sprinting before us

suddenly Eminowicz
popped into my head
“I rush headlong . . . the roiling water golden
the sky suspended from a burning frame”
I smiled to myself
Nike running behind us
cheeks unhealthily flushed
and I was thinking about Eminowicz’s poem
in “Pion” (Chess?)

somewhere once
long long ago
I had read that poem