THE POLKA: What’s Riveting in Polish Literature by Anna Blasiak. MAŁGORZATA LEBDA has it all
For December 2024’s #RivetingReviews I took a closer look at Małgorzata Lebda’s stunning poetry collection Queen Cells in Elżbieta Wójcik-Leese’s translation into English. And, indeed, in her native Poland Lebda is best known for her poetry: Matecznik (Polish original title of Queen Cells) is one of eight books of verse that this 39-year-old poet has so far produced, and to great acclaim. She has won some of the biggest literature prizes in Poland, including The Gdynia Literary Award and the Wisława Szymborska Poetry Award. So, yes, she is considered one of the most interesting poets of her generation. But in 2023 we learned that she is also a very talented novelist. That was when her novel Łakome saw the light of day, which went straight onto the shortlist for the Nike Literary Prize in 2024 (that is THE biggest literary prize in Poland). And now Łakome is coming to us in English: a new publisher, Linden Editions, will release it in March 2025 with the title Voracious, in Antonia Lloyd-Jones’ superb translation. A short taster:
The mirrors drive me mad, I say to Ann many days later.
Why’s that? she asks.
Because they multiply me. Wherever I turn, I’m visible, and there, in the shed, I’m visible from every side. And I become aware that I exist spatially in three dimensions, and that’s unbearable, I add. But they also tempt me, I say.
Shhh, go to sleep, says Ann.
This novel is about illness and dying, about bodies, and about love. A granddaughter is taking care of her dying grandmother, the struggling grandfather stays away and expresses his love through his actions: he attempts a house renovation (as if fixing the house could fix his wife), he cooks pigeon broth for her. He sees her illness as a wild animal, it needs to be tamed. Or, as the grandfather says in the book, “the wild to the wild”. And all that happens against the backdrop of the beautiful and harsh countryside around them, contrasted with the brutal savagery of a slaughterhouse located in the same village. Lebda does not romanticise life in the countryside, quite the opposite – the cruelty and abuse at its core are exposed as if under a cold eye of the microscope.
The house’s illness and Grandma’s illness have driven me out into the landscape. I’m suffocating in this house, I say to myself aloud. I like this timbre, finally it can be mine, authentic.
I say and hear myself: I hate the walls of this house; I hate the stink, the shit, the blood that comes from the slaughterhouse; I hate the frost that paints flowers on the windows of the stable; I hate my hands, which stink of death; I hate Grandpa and his slow movements, his Klub cigarettes; I hate Ann and her calm, her beauty, her fragrance, her body, the way she watches; I hate Grandma and the fact that she’s nurturing something inside her, I hate the fact that she’s alive, and the fact that she’s dying.
I take a deep breath, and as I breathe out I swear into the snow-covered topmost fields on the ridge.
The story is delivered in short snippets, like separate poetic-prose puzzle pieces which together create this rich tapestry. What also links Lebda’s prose and poetry writing is her amazingly attuned ear and her ability to strip the language down to its barest basics without losing any of its beauty and dignity, albeit sometimes the impact is a tad distanced and cold. Lebda is able to find new anchors for her words, to change them into something new. It works in verse, and it works in fiction.
Tick-tock
You died, but you came to life, you were lost, but you are found, says Grandma between spoonfuls of pigeon broth that I’m guiding to her narrow lips.
I was driven away from here by the death of my parents and aunt, I think, and I’ve been brought back by the next death to be hanging over this house. Everything here ticks: tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, to a point of loss.
I’m shaken out of my reverie by a noise coming from Grandma’s belly. Something’s overflowing in her guts. Exactly the way it overflows in the guts of this house – it occurs to me – whenever Grandpa feeds the furnace and hot water moves into the pipes to heat the boiler and then the radiator ribs.
You were lost, but you are found, she carries on, louder, as if wanting to deafen the noises coming from her body, which as I can see are embarrassing her. You were lost, but you are found and now you are all my daughters at once and you carry in you all my grandsons and granddaughters. And there’s lots and lots to be born from me.
So soon we will have two of Lebda’s books in English. Let’s enjoy them, and hope for more. I hear that Mer de Grace, another of Lebda’s poetry collections, has already been translated into English by Mira Rosenthal, and, fingers crossed, will be published in the future. But my fervent hope is that one day we will be able to read all of Lebda’s prodigious output in English.
by Anna Blasiak
Photo of Małgorzata Lebda by Rafal Siderski
Anna Blasiak is a poet, writer, translator and Managing Editor of the European Literature Network.
Read previous posts in The Polka series:
THE POLKA: What’s Riveting in Polish LIterature by Anna Blasiak. JOANNA BATOR and her bears
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