THE POLKA: What’s Riveting in Polish Literature by Anna Blasiak. RADOSŁAW WIŚNIEWSKI and his Psalm to Saint Sabina

I want to use The Polka to direct attention towards Polish writers and books from Poland that thrill me, that draw me, that captivate me. Not all of these books are regulars on the bestseller lists or end up winning big prizes. In fact, quite a few of my most exciting literary discoveries of the last few years are niche poetry collections published by small indie presses that tend to fly under the radar. But these very publishers and their books are often bubbling pots of creativity, the places where some of the most interesting literary things happen.

One such literary discovery is Radosław Wiśniewski – a poet, prose writer and literary critic, and co-founder of the poetry group and publishing house K.I.T. Stowarzyszenie Żywych Poetów (Living Poets Society), based in Brzeg near Wrocław. He is the author of ten volumes of poetry, several prose books and historical essays. The list of his day jobs includes civil servant, pizza-delivery driver, teacher, manager of a cultural centre, insurance agent and satellite-dish and CCTV-camera salesman.

The book I would especially like to draw attention to is Wiśniewski’s Psalm to Saint Sabina, a poem in eighty-eight stanzas. It had several editions in Polish, it also inspired a live performance. The book tells the story of Sabina Szopf, the protagonist’s (and poet’s) great-grandmother, who was born in Tsarist Russia in 1900, lived under the Soviet and German occupations, and ended up settling after the war in the town of Brzeg in Silesia, Poland, previously the German town of Brieg. She was a woman of natural intelligence and big personality, a very religious person who could also be quite down to earth, and who was gifted with a great sense of humour and joie de vivre. This book-length poem is a kind of personal and private process of the sanctification of Sabina, written in language that on one hand hints at the Bible, and at psalms and litanies, and on the other hand is simple and colloquial, tinged with Sabina’s Eastern Borderlands linguistic quirks. The book is full of memories, mysticism and humanity, all balanced with a fair dose of humour.

If the above has captured your attention, here is a little snippet from Psalm of Saint Sabina, from the very beginning and the very end of the long poem:

1. Saint Sabina of Brzeg, Kolomyia, Sniatyn, Łapy, Tobolsk,
whose ID said your place of birth was Sniatyn in USSR, 
even though when you were born there was no USSR
and the ruler was Tsar Nicholas, a saint by definition.

2. You, who led us all, before we even took place, hidden
in the twists of the steppe genotype, out of your home
towards your captivity in June 1945, with one hour left
to pack everything.

3. In your person our history is stitched together with a tack of rail tracks,
in a steady rat-tat of the wheels of cattle carriages as far as Orsha, 
to the bridge over the Dnieper River, where they stopped, abandoned
by the guards. And suddenly Stukas dropped bombs from the sky, 
and carriages were full of people, and the carriage doors were sealed.

[…]

85. Don’t pray for us. Don’t commend us to anybody. Do not take us into your protection.
Don’t be our patroness or our mediatrix. Don’t reconcile us with anybody.

86. Stand by the door, as you used to when you were completely transparent
like a viaticum that the young priest had denied you when your taste, smell,
eyesight, hearing and memory left you. And say again, what you said over 
and over again every evening, leading us to anger and wrath,

87. Radeczek, I’ll go lie down now, so everybody can do what they want
and what they like. There is food in the pantry. There is gravy, there are spuds 
first class, so eat if you like. I’m leaving you in charge of the household.

88. Good night, good night and once more good night.

Blog by Anna Blasiak

Radosław Wiśniewski

Psalm to Saint Sabina

Translation of poem extracts by Anna Blasiak

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Anna Blasiak is a poet, writer, translator and Managing Editor of the European Literature Network.

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Read previous posts in The Polka series:

THE POLKA: What’s Riveting in Polish LIterature by Anna Blasiak. Joanna Bator and her bears