EK: Let’s talk about you. Why did you decide to write children’s poetry?
MR: It was by accident. It all started with translations. The Polish publisher Znak asked me to translate the poetry of A. A. Milne, the author of the Winnie the Pooh stories. Incidentally, Szymborska also plays an important role in this story, too.
EK: How so?
MR: Initially, the representative of the publishing house came to Szymborska, to propose that she do the translation. She refused, after which he looked at me and said, ‘Maybe you’ll do it then?’ And that’s how it all started. My children also helped me. My daughter was 6 years old then, and I checked the translation with her. I read and watched her reaction. Translation is indeed a big responsibility. If you are dealing with a masterpiece, and Milne’s stories are undoubtedly masterpieces, the bar for the translation is set very high. Then I myself became a writer of poetry.
EK: What language do you translate from?
MR: From English.
EK: I read that that’s not the only one…
MR: I also happened to translate from French and Hebrew. Considering that I don’t know these languages well, I did a very literal translation. The thing is that in Poland there are very few translators that do rhyming translations. But I like this. My manifestation of graphomania resides in this. Rhyming translation brings me particular pleasure.
EK: Did you show your translations to Szymborska?
MR: I didn’t want to bother her. She had a lot of work without me. However, she would sometimes ask what I was working on at the moment, what I was translating. She really liked my translation of Edward Gorey. This is the sort of humour that was to her liking – a bit dark. Gorey, of course, was not only a writer, but also an illustrator, working in the macabre style. Szymborska was delighted by him.
EK: You wrote books of somewhat questionable advice for children: ‘How to Curse’ and ‘How to Deceive and Slander’.
MR: Yes. I wanted to show how to respectably get out of a situation where you want to say something bad or deceptive. The idea to write such a book was given to me by two situations. I translate the American comic strip Peanuts. The heroes there swear, but they do this in a very innocent, child-like way. Working on the translation, I had to find analogies resembling bad words in the Polish language, and I realised that our language is poor in this area. I then appealed to my friends, and then to the viewers of one of the main television channels in Poland, for them to help me in the search for such innocent curse words. My mailbox was quickly filled with examples, and I suddenly had a lot of material for a book.
EK: That’s the first matter. And the second?
MR: My daughter was learning how to read. When we would leave the house, she, of course, would pay attention to all of the graffiti on the walls and fences.
EK: It’s not hard to guess what she was reading. There aren’t too many variants…
MR: Yes. Once she said to me, ‘Daddy, I already know what “dupa” (arse) is, but what does the word “chuj” (prick) mean?’ What was I supposed to do in this situation? I could yell at her and forbid her from using such words. Or I could lie and say that it’s an abbreviation. But everything kept secret is eventually revealed. And swear words can’t realistically be thrown out of speech. They will always be there. Swearing is the indicator of our internal, emotional condition. I decided to replace the curse words with something else. I taught children to come up with their own personal bad words that only made sense to them. I turned this into a game, an amusement. Incidentally, after writing these books I found out that child psychology also advises parents to do something similar if curse words appear in a child’s vocabulary. Let a child become a creator of language. Let them come up with their own bad words and use them in critical situations.
Interview originally conducted in Polish, translated by Katherine Alberti into English via a Russian translation, Oct 2017