From: marek@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Marek Lugowski)
Subject: "Do live -- you said..." / Halina Poswiatowska / trans: Marek
Organization: Northwestern University, Evanston Illinois.
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 07:25:18 GMT

Here is Halina Poswiatowska (Marek #3).  It's in paragraph form, three
paragraphs actually.  H.P. was born in 1935 and died in 1967, 32, in
the middle of a full-blown, first-rate tenure as a poet; she died
writing prolifically; she died loving life.  This poem appeared after
her death in _Jeszcze jedno wspomnienie_ (One more remembrance), in
1968, and was reprinted in the book of which I have the latest edition,
_Wiersze wybrane_ (Selected Poems), 1989.

From what I have read of her poetry, she is definitely up there with Sylvia
Plath and Anne Sexton, but with a very distinct voice all her own, very
Polish, although she was quite cosmopolitan and spent time in the U.S,
graduating from Smith in 3 years.  You may wish to keep in mind that she
spent most of her life in hospitals and sanatoriums, and that her first of
the two heart surgeries was in the U.S. in 1958.  It extended her life by
some 9 years.  She died a widow after 2 years of marriage to Adolf
Poswiatowski, also a heart patient, and she died in Warsaw after the second
heart operation.  As Jan Zych, the editor of _Wiersze wybrane_ writes
(my translation   -- Marek):

"Distrusting, but full of hope and greedy for the treasures that books
bestow, with uncanny fortitude she took to studying at Smith right after
the first heart operation.  Just then she wrote to friends: 'for the first
time I am beginning to think of myself in terms of a future'.  She studied
philosophy and logic, English and German; she wrote poems, and she
translated from English and French to Polish (Joseph Margolis, Lawrence
Ferlinghetti, Ezra Pound, Paul Eluard, Jacques Prevert), and she got
started on learning Spanish, especially appreciating Lorca's writing
(_Obras completas_) with which she would never part."

Ok, now you know more about Halina Poswiatowska, thanks to the book my
Wislawa Szymborska co-translator Joanna Trzeciak (who is at U of
Chicago) sent me from Poland the summer of '90.


		untitled ("Do live -- you said..."), #3
          	from p. 245 of 1989's _Wiersze wybrane_.
		-------------------------------------------------------------

		Do live -- you said -- you are a sun's ray
		caught as the hue of a flower.  You are the
		soft touch of a bee's wings you are the
		narrow blade of grass the buzz of a beetle
		-- you said -- live.
		
		The hue of a flower goes out and turns into
		a fruit less beautiful but needed by your
		fingers which lightly touch the warm, heated
		skin.  The hue of a flower dies...  The
		bee's wings allied with the wind bring into
		the fourcornered shadow of a hive honey with
		which you feed your mouth.  The blade of
		grass with its tart aftertaste sticks to
		your lips.  You make excuses for everything
		and the shadow and the bird because you need
		everything.  Why do you say: live like a
		bird like a bee like a leaf when it is all
		you and you.  Say it like so -- live for me
		live so that I could kiss your fingers
		smelling of camomile and your neck so like a
		flower.  And eyebrows like leaves.  And
		mouth.
		
		Then I will brush my hair with a yellow comb
		I will rest it on a pillow I will calm my
		hands.  And I will live!  For you.

		
			Halina Poswiatowska, Polish, 1960's

				translated by
				Marek Lugowski
				27 October 1990
				Cincinnati, Ohio

		
		
		Copyright 1975 Wydawnictwo Literackie
		original in Polish: (p. 245, _Wiersze wybrane_)
		-------------------------------------------------------------
		
		Zyj -- mowiles -- jestes promieniem slonca schwytanym
		w barwe kwiatu.  Jestes miekkim dotykiem skrzydel pszczoly
		jestes waskim zdzblem trawy brzekiem chrabaszcza -- mo-
		wiles -- zyj.
		Barwa kwiatu gasnie i przeradza sie w owoc mniej piekny
		ale potrzebny twoim palcom ktore lekko dotykaja cieplej
		nagrzanej skory.  Barwa kwiatu umiera...  Skrzydla pszczoly
		sprzymierzone z wiatrem przynosza w czworokatny cien
		ula miod ktorym karmisz usta.  Zdzblo trawy cierpkim po-
		smakiem przywiera do twoich warg.  Usprawiedliwiasz wszy-
		stko i cien i ptaka bo wszystko potrzebne tobie.  Po co mo-
		wisz: zyj jak ptak jak pszczola jak lisc gdy to wszystko jest
		toba i toba.  Tak powiedz -- zyj dla mnie zyj abym mogl
		calowac twoje palce pachnace rumiankiem i szyje podobna
		do kwiatu.  I brwi jak liscie.  I usta.
		Wtedy wlosy rozczesze zoltym grzebieniem poloze na po-
		duszce rece uspokoje.  I bede zyla!  Dla ciebie.

		
			Halina Poswiatowska, Polish, 1960's.