SOBBING SUPERPOWER (Selected Poems)
by Tadeusz Różewicz
In Polish, the expression for wild blueberries is dzikie jagody. But there is also the word, borówki, another way to say blueberries and yet another, poziomki. Summertime in Poland, when the forests are in full delivery of their bounty, picking berries is a special tradition. It’s called, Na Jagody; literally translated, means: For Berries. There is even a name for the jars one uses called, łubianki. It is a common sight along the country-roads to see these berries next to the baskets of freshly, foraged mushrooms for sale.
“I see the forest where
I picked wild blueberries with you
The body was very agile then
And young like water”
This is from the poem Return to the Forest, written in 1951, five years after the war. After the betrayal. After the shattering of lives. After the slaughter. After the heart was damaged beyond repair, when it had nothing left to offer of itself but its own witness.
In the forward, written by Edward Hirsch, he says: “The war was such a traumatic event that for a new generation of Polish poets it called all moral and aesthetic values into question. Those who survived could never believe in the future again. Nor could they revert to traditional forms of poetry. They rejected the aesthetics of elaborate, ornamental, or sonorous language...drastic simplicity.”
Różewicz hid in the forest with his brother, Jan. They were among the Polish resistance fighters. Jan was executed in 1944 by the Nazis. Tadeusz and his brother, Stanisław survived. War. The Forest. Poetry.
The Story of Old Women
I like old women
ugly women
mean women
they are the salt of the earth
they are not disgusted by
human waste...
old women get up at dawn
buy meat fruit bread
clean cook
stand on the street
arms folded silent
old women are immortal...
I live in Poland. I live next door to a war. I have friends in Ukraine, and friends in Palestine. I have a cousin in Jerusalem. Are they dead or alive? Every morning I wake to this first thought. Are they hungry? I know they’re anxious.
Are they without hope? Have they lost their faith? I have no patience with the exaggeration of another’s self-worth.
I have no time to engage in concepts such as ethnic supremacy or in discussing how a special group has been chosen by God. Any group. I have no patience with political mumbo jumbo, asserting justification to murder tens of thousands of innocent people. The hubris of modern man is without equivalent.
The only thing that stands a chance to unite the opposites is the artist. The artist is the third thing. The witness to war.
Even if no one sees you or hears you or agrees with you; in fact, even if they vilify you, you must not stop witnessing. This is the job for those of us who resist war, genocide, slaughter of innocents. We must have the courage to stand with the mother by the grave of her buried child, senselessly killed by the stupidity of man. We must witness.
Sobbing Superpower is a collection of poems that encourages us to not forget this responsibility.