One can only admire the consistency with which Sośnicki manages to pull off his concept of "ineffective poetry." Even in these poems, of course, there are some fireworks capable of stunning the experts at metaphor and versifying, yet the basic principle of choosing subject matter and props regarded as "uninteresting", "commonplace" or "everyday" always holds good. One of Sośnicki's most skilfully executed (and most highly valued) works is a detailed description of the area around a tramway loop. Another is an equally elegant monologue addressed to a mouse trapped in a bucket. The idea of concentrating on things that are so close to us as to go unnoticed is expressed in the titles of his first two collections.
Marlewo is the name of a suburb of Poznań where Sośnicki used to live in a rented, unheated cottage, and is also the setting for the "action" of these generally gloomy, claustrophobic poems. Ikarus (which is also a common name of public transport bus) came into being while he was working at Nowy Nurt (the leading literary journal of the 1990s), and so Rybaki Street, the site of the editorial office, takes a central position in this book. It was enough for Sośnicki to write a poem about the view from his window for the spot to become a place of pilgrimage for Poznań's young poets. The hydrant on Lachowicka Street became nationally famous when he compared it to "the statue of a boy in a beret with the arms knocked off". A typical feature of Sośnicki's work is a poetic spirit of inquiry, striving to create a full, synthetic vision of the object or situation being described; he often manages it in a few words, while sometimes it requires some detailed specification, as in Bird Song, which reports on the ornithological attractions of the poet's home neighbourhood.
Symmetry is slightly different from its predecessors; even the title does not imply any solid association with a name, but is an idea from the realm of aesthetics. In this collection Sośnicki reveals the ontological foundation of his work, which is the "element of symmetry" (which, according to the philosopher A. Falkiewicz, is the opposite of entropy), the tendency, common to nature and art, to take on regular forms. Also relevant are the facts that the poet has moved from a house into a block of flats (an incredible poem called From the Ground Floor tells about the sounds echoing on the stairs), and has become a father (interestingly, Sośnicki's son Witold made his first appearance in literature as a pupil at primary school and a conversation partner, whereas other Polish poets generally describe their children as infants and stop at that). Symmetry also includes some poems written in the USA, which prove that the trans-Atlantic trip did little to change the author's approach to reality. Sośnicki's poetry demands "good faith", intense concentration and sensitivity to the specific, and also rejection of current convictions about the hierarchical arrangement of the world. In this poetry anything can appear important, worthy of subtle analysis and installing in the most unexpected cultural contexts.
For Symmetry he was nominated for Polityka's Passport in 2002, and for Spóźniony owoc radiofonizacji / Belated Fruit of Radiofonisation he was nominated for a Gdynia Award in 2015. Even though thirteen years separate these two volumes and there are differences between them, some motifs return in Sośnicki's poetry. Zofia Król wrote:
In his new book - just as in Marlewo published in the 1990s and in later Symmetry - a returning subject is movement, changing place. Sośnicki especially likes TLK trains - from Białystok to Warsaw or from Warsaw to Zielona Góra. In a poem entitled poignantly 'To Ride, Ride and Ride' he goes to Ukraine with Zadura, with Bodak, in his thoughts, to Lithuania, with others to Egypt, Prague or China. 'Only clatter. Pear trees and poplars'. ("Dwutygodnik", nr 147, 11/2014).
In 2011 a book of collected poems entitled O rzeczach i ludziach / On Things and Men was published. His poems were translated into Romanian and English.
Dariusz Sośnicki is also a translator: among other things, he translated W.H. Auden's Thanksgiving for a Habitat, which was published in Polish in 2013. Between 2005 and 2013 he was a chief editor of Polish prose in W.A.B. publishing house. Since November 2015 he is editor in chief in the Ossolineum publishing house.
Bibliography:
- Marlewo, Ostrołęka, Pracownia 1994
- Ikarus , Wroclaw, Pomona 1998
- Symetria, Legnica, Biuro Literackie Port Legnica 2002
- Skandynawskie lato (Scandinavian Summer), Wrocław: Biuro Literackie, 2005.
- Folia na wietrze ( Wrocław: Biuro Literackie, 2007.
- Państwo P., Wrocław: Biuro Literackie, 2009.
- O rzeczach i ludziach (1991-2010), Wrocław: Biuro Literackie, 2011.
- Spóźniony owoc radiofonizacji, Biuro Literackie, Wrocław 2014
- Wysokie ogniska, WBPiCAK, Poznań 2014
Source: www.polska2000.pl, Copyright: Stowarzyszenie Willa Decjusza, updated September 2016.