#RivetingReviews: Anna Blasiak reviews QUEEN CELLS by Małgorzata Lebda

Małgorzata Lebda is a photographer and an ultramarathon runner (she has run all 1113 kilometres along Poland’s longest river, the Vistula). She is also the author of eight poetry collections and the winner of numerous literary awards in her native Poland. Last year saw her prose debut in the form of the novel, Łakome (Voracious), which drew a lot of attention and critical acclaim (and is due to be published in English in 2025 by Linden Editions, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones).

Queen Cells was originally published in Poland in 2016 (as Matecznik). This collection of poetry is marked by a certain quietness, an intense focus on small detail and tenderness. It forces the reader to slow down, stop even, look around and see anew – to the point of rubbing one’s eyes in astonishment. It’s a beautiful experience.

The framework of this collection – as the title suggests – is the life of bees. I know nothing about beekeeping, hives, swarms and the rules of this (to me) unusual world, but the respect and care for bees expressed in this volume easily translated in my mind into something bigger: respect and care for the world around us, for nature in general. Something we so badly need these days …

Everything here happens within the hushed world of life in the countryside. There is nature – in its beautiful, but also sometimes cruel costume (it is here father will first / tell us about death he’ll put on it the mask of the forest), of which, inevitably, we are part (I see the blood / of the animal and the blood of my sister mix). There are pictures of traditional country life with its beliefs and customs, all shaped by natural laws; there is, ever present, death. The forest, next to bees, is a looming presence, the underpinning of it all, the main reference point, the mapping. Another important returning theme is fire, in its threatening but also calming and cleansing iteration (it was the passion of our eyes / premonition of punishment // for generations it spared our barns / so it was on our side).

These are truly beautiful, hushed – but still striking – poems. Everything is carefully distilled to its very essence. The quietness is highlighted by the fact that the poet doesn’t use capital letters. Elżbieta Wójcik-Leese’s translations are highly skilful, precise and retain the succinctness and the restrained tone of the original – quite an achievement!

This quiet world is also marked by an honesty which – perhaps because of its very quietude – can come across as shocking. But it is nevertheless true (the salt dissolves the slug bodies for the money / earned from our father the boys buy jellied brawn).

Apart from everything else, this book forms the last, final dialogue between a father and his daughter/children, a stripped-down exchange, filled with the kind of love that doesn’t use the words of love, but the words of life (thinking of me you will / speak the language of plants).

This is definitely a book that I will be returning to, again and again!

Reviewed by Anna Blasiak

QUEEN CELLS

Written by Małgorzata Lebda

Translated from the Polish by Elżbieta Wójcik-Leese

Published by Broken Sleep Books (2024)

December 2024 #RivetingReviews titles are available to buy from bookshop.org.

Anna Blasiak is a poet, writer, translator and Managing Editor of the European Literature Network. Recently she has translated According to Her by Maciej Hen (shortlisted to the EBRD Literature Prize 2023) and Aneta Kamińska’s Czernowitz-Charmowitz. She has published two bilingual poetry and photography books with Lisa Kalloo Café by Wren’s St-James-in-the-Fields, Lunchtime (2020) and Deliverance (2024), as well as a book-length interview with a Holocaust survivor, Lili: Lili Stern-Pohlmann in conversation with Anna Blasiak.

Read Anna Blasiak’s #‎RivetingReview of RUDE GIRL by Birgit Weyhe

Read Anna Blasiak’s #‎RivetingReview of VIRGULA by Sasja Janssen

Read Anna Blasiak’s #‎RivetingReview of COLLECTED WORKS by F. van Dixhoorn

Read Anna Blasiak’s #‎RivetingReview of SPANISH POETRY ANTHOLOGIES

Read Anna Blasiak’s #‎RivetingReview of HEAVEN by Manuel Vilas

Read Anna Blasiak’s #‎RivetingReview of SUR(RENDERING) by Mario Martín Gijón

Read Anna Blasiak’s #‎RivetingReview of BURNING BONES by Miren Agur Meabe

Read Anna Blasiak’s #‎RivetingReview of BAD WORDS: SELECTED SHORT PROSE and SQUANDERED ADVICE by Ilse Aichinger

Read Anna Blasiak’s #‎RivetingReview of DISTANT TRANSIT by Maja Haderlap

Read Anna Blasiak’s #‎RivetingReview of THE TRILOGY OF SURFACES AND INVISIBILITIES by Nora Gomringer

Read Anna Blasiak’s #‎RivetingReview of MY SEVEN LIVES: JANA JURÁŇOVÁ IN CONVERSATION WITH AGNEŠA KALINOVÁ

Read Anna Blasiak’s #‎RivetingReview of ISLAND MOUNTAIN GLACIER by Anne Vegter