The Peculiar Standing of Poetry
‘I accept this award as an award for poetry,’ declared Jerzy Jarniewicz when accepting the Nike Literary Award for 2022. In the Polish cultural milieu, this award is still considered the most prestigious. Importantly, although the competition does not exclude any genres, poets rarely receive Nike’s recognition; epic forms are preferred, and above all – traditional novels. Let's go back to the award ceremony.
Jarniewicz spoke the words quoted here, with visible emotion, but also genuine surprise that it was a poetry book that was awarded, and not one of the sumptuous volumes of artistic and discursive prose; after all it, was with them that the collection of poems Mondo cane competed in the final stage, and eventually won. The laureate, of course, immediately revealed the reason for this astonishment, saying that there are as many poetry readers ‘as there were fallen at Thermopylae’. Rewarding a book of poetry – if I understand it correctly – is a significant, unique thing, so significant and unique that it is appropriate to share the splendour, which he did (‘prize for poetry’).
Jarniewicz's words at the Nike gala raised an issue that I have been thinking about for a long time. It concerns the peculiar standing of poetry within the wider domain known as contemporary Polish literature. Let me make a disclaimer at this point: I have no intention whatsoever to echo the classics, asking why ‘some people like poetry’ or ‘what’s the use for a poet’ (in miserable or even in so-so times). I also leave Jarniewicz's three hundred Spartans aside, because I don't believe I can add any new argument to this matter – the niche quality and marginality of poetry.
So what is this peculiarity about? In my opinion, it stands for a special contract that can be presented as a deal: freedom for irrelevance. After all, it has been known for a long time that poetry has been deprived of the possibility of influencing beyond its own sphere. It lives in the ghetto, a closed and isolated zone, and belongs to a very narrow literary subculture. The sole question, and an only seemingly bizarre one is: is it doing well there? It certainly enjoys peace and quiet, after all, no one applies such parameters as the volume of circulation, position on the bestseller list or the amount of royalties paid to poetry books. I am not as much guessing as I am sure that no Polish poet suffers from the fact of not being invited to morning TV shows or not being paid three thousand zlotys for an author meeting at a municipal public library or a district community centre. In other words, a contemporary poet has something that a prose writer has been deprived of – they are a free artist. One free from the terror of success and popularity, from media-market neuroses, from the promotional hustle and bustle that has been devastating our literary field for years.
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The ceremony of announcing the verdict and presenting the Nike 2022 Literary Award, photo: Jacek Szydłowski / Forum
What is perhaps most important, contemporary Polish poetry – unlike prose – is a developing and searching literature (en masse, of course, and thus by way of a generalization and simplification). What I mean is that its precondition is a creative, generally critical, innovation-oriented (not necessarily experimental) attitude to language. Huge spheres of prose, including those rewarded and spoiled with a good word, are dead in this regard, or at least disappointing. While in the novel you can (without much shame) continue the nineteenth-century conventions of the so-called mature realism, capturing the poetics of the old masters of poetry would bring a likely artistic disgrace. A contemporary prose writer can use a lexical resource consisting of two thousand words and, almost exclusively, the syntax of a simple sentence (and without any dependent clause!) and still bask in recognition, enjoy praise and abundance. Meanwhile, a poetic simplemindedness is basically unimaginable.
When I mentioned the old masters a moment ago, I meant poets from the distant, even very distant past. This commentary seems necessary because until recently there were some among us we called the classics still among us, including two Nobel Prize winners for Literature. It is worth recalling, then, that at the beginning of this century it was quite unanimously stated that it was the seniorial literary activity of such poetry giants as Czesław Miłosz, Wisława Szymborska or Tadeusz Różewicz that determined the rank and class of contemporary literature written in Polish. It is to be cherished as its conscience, invigorating spring, a national treasure. I am not sure that was really the case, but undoubtedly the poetry of the old masters served to celebrate the alleged importance of literature in the lives of Poles, forced the conviction that the bound word sensitizes and enriches us spiritually, and brings forth difficult and vital questions (certainly including metaphysical ones). Thus it played a decorative and ritualistic function like ferns placed on a committee table covered with a green cloth.
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Jerzy Jarniewicz, 2022, photo: Marcin Stępień / Agencja Wyborcza
And one more note pro domo sua. For years, I have been delighted with the quality of literary criticism commentaries formulated by poetry experts. I admit that there is a pang of jealousy to it – for it is something I myself can’t seem to be able to do. It is impossible to deny that opinion-makers in poetry also enjoy freedom. Primarily because they do not have to discuss a poetry book in terms of consumers (market, commodity, etc.). Anyway, there is no such thing as influencer poetry criticism – I would not expect any bloggers, Instagrammers or Youtubers discussing the awarded volume by Jerzy Jarniewicz. Not only does poetry criticism attract the best penmanship and minds, but more importantly, it is virtually indelible. In the sense that experts from this particular field cannot be replaced by journalists and cultural reviewers working for the mass media. Why? Well, because the criticism of poetry – which can be presented as its disadvantage – is located at the antipodes of ‘services for the population’; it is formulated solely with the ones already familiar with it in mind. Yes, its exclusivity, or even it’s somewhat ‘autistic’ quality can be at times amazing, but this is precisely the price of freedom.
Translated from Polish by Michał Pelczar
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