ADSactly Literature - An encounter with the poetry of Czeslaw Milosz

in #literature5 years ago


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An encounter with the poetry of Czeslaw Milosz

How are you, dear readers? As you can see, I like poetry. Of all literary genres, it is in poetry that I have found the best refuge. Indian philosopher and writer Rabindranath Tagore said: Poetry echoes the melody of the universe in the hearts of humans. Reading poetry is listening to the heart of the world, but it is also listening to our own heart. Today we are going to listen to what the poetry of a poet that I have just known has to tell us, but from what little I have read, it seems extraordinary: Czeslaw Milosz.

Some writers make me curious, even if they don't speak my language (Spanish). Some names come to me by recommendation of friends, books, internet pages, others because they have won prizes. I like to read writers who have won the Nobel Prize for Literature and perhaps that is why I have approached this writer who until recently was unknown to me.


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I don't feel bad for not having read this poet before, I believe that books and authors come into our lives when we really need them. However, I am not the only one who reads it late. Reading his biography, I find out that in 1980, when Czeslaw Milosz won the Nobel Prize, for the youth of his native Poland, he was a stranger. Strange, because normally, the Nobel Prize for Literature serves for writers to be projected and read by readers from other countries. But in Milosz's case, it allowed him to screen in his own country.

Notwithstanding the above, according to his biography, when his book Poema sobre el tiempo congelado was published in 1933, he received the poetry prize from the Polish Academy of Literature, which consisted of a scholarship to study in Paris during the year 1934-1935. Also, you can read that many of his great works, narratives, poetics and essays, also had excellent reviews. Milosz's work as a poetry translator is also noteworthy. Among the poets he translated are: Walt Whitman, William B. Yeats, T.S. Eliot, D.H. Lawrence, W.H. Auden, Federico García Lorca, Gabriela Mistral, Pablo Neruda, among others.

Like many poets, Miloz's work does not simply speak of the time in which he lived, his way of seeing and approaching poetry, but also of his life. We find in many of his poems autobiographical features, which tell us about his childhood, his youth, war and exile. Evidently, as keen readers, we weave work and life with each verse, in each paragraph. Let's read some poems.


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At a certain age

We wanted to confess our sins but there were no takers.

Churches. Perhaps churches. But to confess there what?
That we used to see ourselves as handsome and noble
Yet later in our place an ugly toad
Half-opens its thick eyelid
And one sees clearly: "That's me."

The first verse of this poem confronts us with the need to talk about ourselves, about what we have done. Talking to others about ourselves can become an urgency for the speaker and a nuisance for others. Therefore, in this poem we see the exaggeration of not finding anyone interested in our life. Talk about us why and for what, if in the end, we are simple creatures like the others. But when we reach a certain age, that need comes as if we were afraid to leave without having said everything we did, without others knowing that we are passing through here. The end of the poem offers us the cruel truth: what we thought we were, we are no longer. Time has given us the true image, it confronts us with the mirror of reality.


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The following poem is titled A Task and I transcribe it in its entirety:

In fear and trembling, I think I would fulfill my life
Only if I brought myself to make a public confession
Revealing a sham, my own and of my epoch:
We were permitted to shriek in the tongue of dwarfs and
demons
But pure and generous words were forbidden
Under so stiff a penalty that whoever dared to pronounce one
Considered himself as a lost man.

In this poem, as in the previous one, the beginning gives us the guideline of what the lyrical voice wants to express to us: the silence that we assume before some things. Sometimes confessing our silence, not having said or done anything at a certain moment, rather than sinking, can liberate us. Perhaps it is a pending task for the intellectual, due to the role he has had to play in a certain era, reveal himself, raise his voice in the face of injustice, protest; but we know that they have had to remain silent to be able to stay alive. When we read the biography of the poet Czeslaw Milosz, we realize that his work is a portrait of his time, which reflects the ethical dilemmas that European intellectuals of the 20th century faced. And although Milosz he could not take part in the war activities of his country, he did write patriotic poetry that he published under a pseudonym so as not to be persecuted.


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The last poem that I share with you is called Account. I transcribe the first and the last two stanzas:

The history of my stupidity would fill many volumes.

But all of them would have one subject, desire,
If only my own -- but no, not at all; alas,
I was driven because I wanted to be like others.
I was afraid of what was wild and indecent in me.
...
The history of my stupidity will not be written.
For one thing, it's late. And the truth is laborious.

If we start from the title of this poem, we understand that the lyrical voice is making an inventory of his life and has come to the conclusion that there are many stupid things he has done. Although at some point he confesses that most of those actions were to try to please others and stop being himself, at no time do we see repentance. On the contrary, there is a certain mockery and boasting in speaking that it would be impossible and "laborious" the task of writing errors since there are many. Perhaps, when we reach a certain age and acquire a certain maturity, mistakes are wounds of wars that are carried out without prejudice, with the certainty of having lived as it has been possible


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In some poem, Milosz said:

The purpose of poetry is to remind us
How hard it is to be one person,
Well, we've got the house open, there's no keys in the doors,
And invisible guests come and go as they please.

When we write, we are not only writing about ourselves, we are also writing about the world. Each reader will find in each text a part of the author, the environment and himself. As with a song we listen to and make our own, so it is with poetry. A poem ceases to belong to the one who writes it and belongs to the one who reads it, feels it. Reading Czeslaw Milosz's poems gives us the taste of having met a critical poet who, in spite of the silence of an era, sought a way to express himself and make himself heard, but it also makes clear to us, at this time of so much censorship in many countries, the fundamental role that poetry and the intellectual have.


I hope you enjoyed meeting the writer Czeslaw Milosz as much as I did. Remember to vote for @adsactly as a witness and join our server in discord. Until a next smile. ;)

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES

https://www.poemhunter.com/czeslaw-milosz/
http://www.materialdelectura.unam.mx/images/stories/pdf5/czeslaw-milosz-108.pdf
http://confabulario.eluniversal.com.mx/milosz-la-biografia/
http://files.bibliotecadepoesiacontemporanea.webnode.es/200000009-4d1694e10c/Czeslaw%20Milosz.pdf

Written by: @nancybriti

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I became interested in Czeslaw Milosz thanks to the Venezuelan poet Rafael Cadenas, who in the 80's told us about the extraordinary Polish poetry (he also introduced us to Zbigniew Herbert), in a conversation that took place in Cumaná. A lot of time went by, and then I could barely read a few poems in magazines and literary papers. I could never have one of his books in Spanish (and I tried several ways!). Milosz was, therefore, for some time, a beloved poet in absence. Better: he was one of those "consciences" (I suppose it has happened to you) that you want to know because there is "something" in his work that you intuit must be fundamental in your life.
In one of his poems, which I keep in digital archives, I read:

Never from you, city, I have been able to leave.
The mile was long, but something was going backwards like a
piece in chess.
I was fleeing by the land that rolled faster and faster
And I've always been there: with the books in my canvas backpack.

He, who lived the condition of exile until his death, transmits it with an incomparable emotion decanted by memory.
Thank you for bringing us this excellent and dear poet, @nancybriti.

What a coincidence, @josemalavem, was that one of the poems I had originally thought to share with you. That poem, for me, is one of the most beautiful and most memorable of Milosz. I can almost say it by heart. Zbigniew Herbert is also one of the few Polish poets I remember. Thank you for commenting and for bringing part of my favorite poem.

Dear @nancybriti, your post and the quotes you have selected to introduce us to the great Milosz have made me think of the image I have of poetry.
What is the edge of poetry?
Because poetry can be an edge before an abyss, or paradise. We move, staggering, through it, with the vertigo of emptiness on one side or with the promise of a sweet light on the other. On the horizon there are all the possibilities of pain and joy.
As has happened to you, a poet who does not speak my language and with whom I share little of the culture spoke to me very clearly at the time: Edgar Lee Masters.
The language of his poetry somehow transcended linguistic barriers for me and survived the translations. He found, like life, the way to prevail through sensibilities and time. Like Milosz to you, the author of "Spoon River Anthology" is a treasure to me, and a refuge.
Thank you for sharing your @adsactly post and for focusing on this author. I know it little, but I'm sure I'll read it now.
A hug!

I once read in part that poetry has nothing to do with languages but with feelings. Some (or many) feelings are shared, lived in the same way. Although the words sadness, love, injustice, are written differently in other languages, the feelings will be the same. Thank you for your comment, @adncabrera.

Hi, if you liked Czeslaw Milosz maybe you should try Zbigniew Herbert. To be honest, I prefer his poetry more than Miłosz.
But I must say that I understand Milosz writing more now than when I was in high school.

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Certainly! I really like Zbigniew Herbert. There are so many poets you should write about, if only to read your poetry again. Thank you for commenting, @anaerwu

Hi... @adsactly, Cool pictures

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What an interesting post worth reading of

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