CREEK ROAD GANG
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Poetry & Notes
of Anna Kamienska
Reviewed by Joe Quintoncopyright 2010
The work of the prolific Polish poet Anna Kamienska has taken a long time to become available to poetry lovers in America. This June, Poetry Magazine published excerpts from her Notebooks making many aware that her poetry has only been available in English translation for four years (Paraclete Press 2007.) It is a shame that this talented artist has been ignored for so long. The spiritual themes of her poetry will echo with many as will her simple statements on life and death.
Kamienska lived her life in the turmoil that was Poland of the 20th century. She was less than twenty when the Nazis occupied Poland and she lived under that barbarous rule for five years. The Nazis were succeeded by communist rule for most of the rest of her life. In the 70s she was forbidden to publish because of her political views.
In many respects her life had been an extraordinary one despite the turbulence around her. She had become a published poet at the age of seventeen and went on to publish twenty books of poetry as well as her Notebooks in two volumes, translations from French and Russian, and a series of young adult fiction. When she was allowed to work she was an editor on some of the more notable Polish literary journals.
She married a fellow poet Jan Spiewak in 1947. Judging from the tone of the poetry addressed to him it was an extraordinary successful marriage. When he suddenly died of cancer at the age of 49, Kamienska was bereft. For the rest of her life her poetry reflected her loss. His death also caused her to turn to spiritual and mystical themes in her poetry. She became a student of Hebrew to study the Bible and wrote on biblical and other religious themes.
Soon after Spiewak’s death she began to keep a series of notes that were published after her death as Notebooks in two volumes. These contained her thoughts on her work as well as comments on poetry, the spiritual life and on other writers that she found interesting. It is excerpts from these that were published in Poetry, which promises to publish another set in the fall of 2010.
These excerpts show an artist’s views on a variety of subjects, especially death. For her death was a something always with her “death is not a gate to the other world, perhaps it is just an opening of invisible eyes.” “When Jan died I was 47 years old. I try on death as women try on a friend’s hat.” Referring to her husband’s death, “I sought a dead man and found God.” At one point she imagines her husband speaking to her: “Let’s not get up today.” “Let’s take rest after all that??”
“My dead always surround me. I walk in an invisible crowd.”
She states: “In recording these thoughts …In this sense they are my real life.” If so, she was a poet constantly. The excerpts from her notes are alive with comments on poetry. In fact the translators of the Paraclete edition take for their title a quote from the notes: “ ‘laborious astonishments’ – that is for many reasons an apt definition of poetry.”
Her poetry is more than readable; she uses natural language and structure. She builds her poems around a world that is hers.
Kamienska lived her life in the turmoil that was Poland of the 20th century. She was less than twenty when the Nazis occupied Poland and she lived under that barbarous rule for five years. The Nazis were succeeded by communist rule for most of the rest of her life. In the 70s she was forbidden to publish because of her political views.
In many respects her life had been an extraordinary one despite the turbulence around her. She had become a published poet at the age of seventeen and went on to publish twenty books of poetry as well as her Notebooks in two volumes, translations from French and Russian, and a series of young adult fiction. When she was allowed to work she was an editor on some of the more notable Polish literary journals.
She married a fellow poet Jan Spiewak in 1947. Judging from the tone of the poetry addressed to him it was an extraordinary successful marriage. When he suddenly died of cancer at the age of 49, Kamienska was bereft. For the rest of her life her poetry reflected her loss. His death also caused her to turn to spiritual and mystical themes in her poetry. She became a student of Hebrew to study the Bible and wrote on biblical and other religious themes.
Soon after Spiewak’s death she began to keep a series of notes that were published after her death as Notebooks in two volumes. These contained her thoughts on her work as well as comments on poetry, the spiritual life and on other writers that she found interesting. It is excerpts from these that were published in Poetry, which promises to publish another set in the fall of 2010.
These excerpts show an artist’s views on a variety of subjects, especially death. For her death was a something always with her “death is not a gate to the other world, perhaps it is just an opening of invisible eyes.” “When Jan died I was 47 years old. I try on death as women try on a friend’s hat.” Referring to her husband’s death, “I sought a dead man and found God.” At one point she imagines her husband speaking to her: “Let’s not get up today.” “Let’s take rest after all that??”
“My dead always surround me. I walk in an invisible crowd.”
She states: “In recording these thoughts …In this sense they are my real life.” If so, she was a poet constantly. The excerpts from her notes are alive with comments on poetry. In fact the translators of the Paraclete edition take for their title a quote from the notes: “ ‘laborious astonishments’ – that is for many reasons an apt definition of poetry.”
Her poetry is more than readable; she uses natural language and structure. She builds her poems around a world that is hers.
“It is not from the grand
but from every tiny thing
that it grows enormous
as if Someone was building Eternity
as a swallow its nest
out of clumps of moments.”
And in building them she attaches them to a spiritual world that she never lets us forget. She does not let us forget the various heroes and martyrs that lived during her time: Dr. Edith Stein; Dr. Korczak; Simone Weil. That world and every world is hers. All is grounded in the ordinary but observed with a poet’s eye.
SOURCES
Astonishments: selected poems of Anna Kamienska
Translated and edited by Grazyna Drabik and David Curzon
Poetry Magazine: June 2010
SOURCES
Astonishments: selected poems of Anna Kamienska
Translated and edited by Grazyna Drabik and David Curzon
Poetry Magazine: June 2010
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Biographical Note: Joe
Quinton settled in Chester County after various stops around the United
States. He began writing poetry from a desire to make sense of the
varied lives he has led in his eight decades. His poetry is both
autobiographical and forward looking. Joe is a regular contributor to Creek Road Gang. See also the Author Index for Poetry and Author Index for Prose L-Z to find more of his work.
