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Poetry is travel and is in travel, and yesterday’s evening became a time of rest for it. The guests who visited Ryszard Krynicki’s birthday evening – outstanding poets representing various generations and various poetic styles, including: Marcin Baran, Wojciech Bonowicz, Jerzy Kronhold, Ryszard Krynicki, Ewa Lipska, Bronisław Maj, Leszek Aleksander Moczulski, Marcin Sendecki, Krzysztof Siwczyk, Andrzej Sosnowski, Eugeniusz Tkaczyszyn-Dycki and Adam Zagajewski – read Krynicki’s poems as well as their own poems (Krynicki did not read his poems, but only quoted a few texts from his personal anthology of the Polish poetry of the 20th century), giving the audience a time for reflection and a moment of respite from everyday life. But Ryszard Krynicki’s anniversary was celebrated not only with poetry – Tadeusz Trzmiel, Vice-Mayor of the City of Krakow, who visited yesterday’s event, decorated the poet with the Honoris Gratia award, which is granted by the Mayor of the City of Krakow to persons with distinguished services to the city. Obviously, there was also a birthday cake on the banquet held in honour of the poet.
We can conclude our report on the last day only with a summary of the entire Jubilee of Ryszard Krynicki. To this end, we will quote the words of Paweł Próchniak, one of the originators of the event: ‘These were very intense three days; I think that they were celebrated deeply, but with joy. The poetry and personality of Ryszard Krynicki that was in the centre of this celebration is a good foundation for this kind of lively, deep and moving thought, for something that I would call joy – the joy of existence, the joy of being in the world, the joy towards other people; I think this is very rare and very valuable. That was our aim, and we made it’.
Pic. Max Bruno Pflegel
To celebrate Wisława Szymborska’s 90th anniversary of her birth, which is this Tuesday (the 2nd of July), the Wisława Szymborska Foundation has organised competition entitled Wolę kino [I Prefer Cinema] for a short film about her poetry. A jury, which included: Michał Rusinek, Tadeusz Sobolewski and Maciej Starczewski chose a winner and nine finalists out of over 50 entries. A screening of all the awarded films is planned for the Nobel Prize winner’s birthday – the 2nd of July at 5 p.m. in Krakow’s Kino Pod Baranami.
A complete list of contestants and shots from the films may be viewed at the Foundation’s Facebook profile.
Everyone interested in participation in the screening should phone at: 789 368 861.
The competition’s organising body: The Wisława Szymborska Foundation and Kino Pod Baranami.
The second day of Ryszard Krynicki’s jubilee began with a meeting with people who usually stay invisible, but without whom the author is invisible (in foreign countries). Participants of the meeting hosted by Magda Heydel included translators of Ryszard Krynicki’s poetry into foreign languages: Italian (Francesca Fornari), English (Clare Cavanagh), German (Renate Schmidgall), Russian (Anatol Roitman), Spanish and Catalan (Abel Murcia Soriano and Xavier Farré Vidal).
A discussion on translation ought to start with what translation really is. Each guest had their own opinion: for Renate Schmidgall, it is writing someone else’s texts, for Xavier Farré, it is a way to expand one’s culture by introducing voices which are absent in it, for Franceska Fornari, it is a profound exegesis of the original text, while for Abel Murcia Soriano, it is a meeting place – not only with the foreign, but also with the domestic. Anatol Roitman, on the other hand, referred to the panel’s title and claimed that, for him, translation is the air he breathes. But the air was not the only element to be discussed. Because language is also an element – not the kind of an element that the translator fights with. The kind that he submits himself to.
The translators also told about how they came across Krynicki’s work for the first time. Clare Cavanagh admitted that she red it for the first time when she was in college. She did not understand much back then, because she had only started to learn Polish – but she already felt that there is magic and mystery in these poems. And keeping this magic there is the greatest challenge. Because the translator does not change anything by changing everything.
The next meeting, participated by Ryszard Krynicki, Marian Stala and Paweł Próchniak, was devoted to a book-intention that is Haiku, the poet’s new project which is only in the planning stage right now. It became a starting point for a tale of Polish culture meeting Polish culture, which is not an entirely new phenomenon. As Professor Stala explained, it started with a meeting of the Young Poland movement with Japanese culture, which covered three areas: woodcut, theatre and – to the smallest extent – literature. Because Ryszard Krynicki, as he admitted once himself, is the “last poet of Young Poland”, his story was similar: it started with woodcuts which fascinate him invariably. Then, he got interested in single translations of haiku and wrote some love poems in this style, but they are – fortunately, as he claims – lost. Later, he tried to avoid the haiku style. It was mainly because it became fashionable in Poland (the trend was started by Czesław Miłosz in 1990s and was such a strong one that Marian Stala, as the editor of the culture section in Tygodnik Powszechny, received several hundred haikus from an author who claimed to have another eighteen hundred more, all based on biblical themes). For Ryszard Krynicki, writing haiku is an extremely embarrassing and private thing.
The meeting could not go without reading some haiku out loud – the presented poems were written both by Krynicki’s masters, Bashō and Issa, as well as by Krynicki himself.
The last of yesterday’s meetings was not so much a discussion panel, as a chat between two friends, one of which is a public person, the other ― a private one: Adam Michnik and Ryszard Krynicki. The year 1968 was a starting point for a discussion on the relation of poetry and politics. And although both gentlemen represent two different worlds, they agree on one thing: the New Wave poetry was poetry of moral anxiety, an expression of solidarity with people persecuted by the authorities, a testimony of the generation’s emotions. Poets – including Ryszard Krynicki, Adam Zagajewski, Stanisław Barańczak, Ewa Lipska, among others – could put into words things that young revolting people were unable to verbalize. This, however, was not political poetry, because the poets were not involved in politics – their work only played an important political role because it polemicized with the language used by the authorities and defended its own poetics. Nowadays, poetry does not have to do that. Of course, political poems come up every now and then, but according to Ryszard Krynicki, commenting on politics is not a task for poetry nowadays – it is up to the free mass media. Adam Michnik beautifully summarized the end of the discussion, which was devoted to reading poems within political context: As far as natural resources are concerned, we do not have any gold nor oil, but what we have is outstanding poets.
The final day of Ryszard Krynicki’s jubilee is still ahead of us. What better way to celebrate poetry than by reading poems? A poetry evening will take place at 5 p.m. at the Manggha Museum of Japanese Art and Technology (ul. M. Konopnickiej 26), with the participation of: Marcin Baran, Wojciech Bonowicz, Julia Hartwig, Jerzy Kronhold, Ryszard Krynicki, Ewa Lipska, Bronisław Maj, Leszek Aleksander Moczulski, Marcin Sendecki, Krzysztof Siwczyk, Andrzej Sosnowski, Eugeniusz Tkaczyszyn-Dycki and Adam Zagajewski. The meeting will be hosted by Adam Michnik and Paweł Próchniak
Be there with us to admire and honour the poet!
Pic. Max Bruno Pflegel
Marcin Baran opened RK’70 with a statement that outstanding poets – and Ryszard Krynicki is, without doubt, one of them – should be lauded. Readers do it constantly by reading his works, and the three-day jubilee organised in Krakow is an emanation of this, allowing us to meet the poet in his many incarnations.
RK’70 opened with an academic session: Ryszard Krynicki: palimpsests, labyrinths, archipelagos. The presentations of the participants, outstanding Polish academics, are to become a basis for a review of the works by Ryszard Krynicki, a poet, translator, editor, and publisher.
From the Jagiellonian University, we moved to the modern rooms of MOCAK, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow. The series of meetings with the poet was opened with the Among the books discussion panel. What better way to talk to the man and about the man for whom books play a number of roles – he writes, edits, and translates them, also protecting them against cats – than to start from books? Hence, we took a quick journey in time with the volumes of Ryszard Krynicki’s poetry. But this was no obvious journey. The participants of the meeting – the author himself, Masza Potocka, and Piotr Piotrowski – commented not only on the well-known pieces (such as the debut Pęd pogoni, pęd ucieczki, which Krynicki refuses to acknowledge as his due to the changes made by censors, or Kamień, szron, his latest volume so far). They also talked about the less known works, such as G, a collage-poem in one copy, made of press headlines (one line of it, The country’s first old man made of plastic becoming the poet’s ironic comment with respect to the jubilee) or the self-published Wszystko jest możliwe, made in 12 copies (interestingly, in all of the copies, one line is handwritten).
The meeting ended with a surprise (not the only one of the day – see below): Ryszard Krynicki received his portrait from Edward Dwurnik, a ‘slightly older peer’ of himself. Krynicki admitted that the resemblance is striking.
After that, we moved to the MOCAK arcades for a concert by Pablopavo i Ludziki. This is when the second surprise for Ryszard Krynicki took place: before the concert started, he watched, together with the guests, a special music video (with a guest appearance by Bogusław Linda) to a song about the New Wave made by the Świetliki band especially for him. After that, the Warsaw-based band played not only their songs, but also provided music for Krynicki’s poems performed in melodeclamation by the poets Marcin Baran, Wojciech Bonowicz, and Andrzej Sosnowski. Pablopavo i Ludziki and Grzegorz Turnau also played the Świat w obłokach song, originally performed by Marek Grechuta; the lyrics were written by Ryszard Krynicki.
Wojciech Bonowicz’s words are the best summary of the concert: ‘It’s nice to think that Mr Krynicki was born in the same year as Jim Morrison. And he has managed his strengths better.’
Pic. Max Bruno Pflegel
Since yesterday, Krakow has been celebrating the Ryszard Krynicki Jubilee. On this extraordinary occasion, we have a premiere for you: a video of an interview with the poet by Malwina Mus and Jarosław Fazan.
Interviews with writers are prepared and conducted by students and doctoral students of the Faculty of Polish Studies of Jagiellonian University under the supervision of experienced academic workers and literary critics. For these young people, it is often the first opportunity to prepare and conduct interviews with outstanding creators of literature on their own. As part of the project, students are also appropriately prepared in order to gain confidence in front of the camera. This way, the theoretical aspects of education in Polish studies are supplemented by practical skills of the future cultural journalists. This is why Writers in Motion is so much more than just interviews with writers – it is a laboratory of literature and new media in which various connections are formed between young people bringing in a fresh look on the problems of contemporary literature, experienced critics and researchers, and recognised writers who often reveal their new, previously unknown faces.
Soon, as part of the Writers in Motion project, we will have interviews with Gary Snyder, Julia Hartwig, and Richard Lourie for you.
More about the Ryszard Krynicki Jubilee: krynicki.wydawnictwoemg.pl
On the 28th of June Ryszard Krynicki turns 70. On this occasion, an official celebration of his jubilee – RK’70 – will take place in Krakow. The program of the events that start on the 26th of June will include, among others: an academic session, discussion panels, a concert of Pablopavo i Ludziki combined with recitations of Krynicki’s poems and a separate birthday evening with the participation of poets being Krynicki’s friends.
The celebration will be attended, among others, by: Marcin Baran, Wojciech Bonowicz, Ewa Lipska, Bronisław Maj, Adam Michnik, Marcin Sendecki, Andrzej Sosnowski, Eugeniusz Tkaczyszyn-Dycki and Adam Zagajewski.
The Institute of Polish Philology of the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin in co-operation with the Department of Poetics and Literary Critique of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań and the Faculty of Polish Studies of the Jagiellonian University organises an academic session Ryszard Krynicki: Palimpsests, Labyrinths, Archipelagos, which will take place at Jagiellonian University for three days.
During the grand finale of the jubilee, poems will be read for and with Ryszard Krynicki in Krakow’s Manggha Museum of Japanese Art and Technology.
Organizers:
