on Translating the Poetry of Krystyna Lenkowska
For the past several years, I’ve lived part time in Rzeszów, a Polish city near the Ukrainian border. I’m fortunate to be part of a small, lively literary community here, and particularly lucky to have the Polish poet and translator, Krystyna Lenkowska, as a neighbor. We’re both fascinated by the translation process, probably because we’re both obsessed with the particulars of language, and we began translating one another’s poems as an extension of our conversations about the translation process. Krystyna’s English is excellent, so she always does a first draft of her own in English, and then I work with that draft, going back and forth with her about nuances of meaning, sound, and syntax. This is challenging, of course, because Polish and English have very different sonic qualities, and they operate very differently, grammatically. While Krystyna’s poems might initially seem very direct and straightforward, when I start to work with her on a translation, I’m always startled all over again by how layered and complex her poems actually are. And then historical and cultural contexts have to be taken into account, and “carried over,” too, if possible, from one language to the other. It’s a delicate process, mysterious, and wonderfully rich, both frustrating and deeply satisfying for someone who’s in love with language.
— Cecilia Woloch
/ / / / /
I Didn’t Want to Be Born Here (or There)
I was searching picking choosing
among grains of sand
drops of seawater
atoms of air
too cold too warm
too wet too dry
too dark too light
too tight
I’ve ended up where
it doesn’t matter
I’m made up wholly of inertia
from which I suck the strength
of the stump
of a phantom
tree
tr. Cecilia Woloch & Krystyna Lenkowska
* * * * *
Decompression
Let go of my eyes
don’t hold my eyelashes by the roots
let me close my eyes
at least at dawn
let them drink of rain
moisten with morning dew
it’s unheard of —
half a century
held by the eyes
umbilical cord and fallopian tubes
let go of my long eyes
I can’t lend them to you
no matter how tightly
you hold the rope
I will take them with me, finally,
and put them into the living sockets
and you, rest solemnly
in your own precious organs
and return to the noble and dear
dust
Mom.
tr. by Cecilia Woloch & Krystyna Lenkowska
* * * * *
[untitled]
When they come, that day and that night
when we sit down to drink wine that has aged
somewhere between steppe and steppe
into vats of standing time
we’ll dip our mouths and fingers like so
as if we were drowning
and bite by bite
gulp after gulp
we’ll share this wormwood bread
somewhere between steppe and steppe
until deep blue absinthe covers the table to the horizon
as if the last vat had burst
and your eyes came to me, free
and were the steppe.
tr. by Cecilia Woloch
/ / / / /
NIE CHCIAŁAM SIĘ TU (ANI TAM) URODZIĆ
Szukałam przebierałam
w ziarnach piasku
kroplach morza
atomach powietrza
za zimno za ciepło
za mokro za sucho
za ciemno za jasno
za ciasno
wylądowałam tam, gdzie
wszystko jedno
jestem więc cała z inercji
z niej wysysam siłę
pniaka
z fantomem
drzewa.
/ / /
ODBARCZANIE
Puść moje oczy
nie trzymaj za cebulki rzęs
pozwól przymknąć powieki
choćby nocą
niech się napoją jej dżdżem
ranną rosą nawilżą
czy kto słyszał, żeby
pół wieku
trzymać za oczy
za pępowinę jajowody
puść moje długie oczy
nie mogę ci ich użyczyć
choćbyś nie wiem jak
kurczowo trzymała postronek
wezmę je wreszcie ze sobą
i włożę w żywe oczodoły
a ty spoczywaj uroczyście
w swoich cennych organach
i obracaj się w proch szlachetny
i drogi
mamo
/ / /
Kiedyś nadchodzą ten dzień i ta noc
że zasiadamy do wina co dojrzało
gdzieś między stepem a stepem
w kadziach stojącego czasu
maczamy usta i palce tak
jakbyśmy nurzali się cali
i kęs po kęsie
haust za haustem
dzielimy się tym chlebem piołunem
gdzieś między stepem a stepem
aż modry absynt pokrywa stół po horyzont
jakby nam pękła ostatnia kadź
a twoje oczy przychodziły do mnie wolne
były stepem.