An Interview with Michal Rusinek, Wislawa Szymborska's Personal Secretary

This is an interview with Michal Rusinek, poet and translator, Assistant Professor at the Department of Polish Language and Literature of the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland, and a personal secretary to the distinguished Polish poet and the laureate of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature, Wislawa Szymborska who died on February 1, 2012.

The interview was conducted in June 2007 by Polish journalist Bozena U. Zaremba.  This is the first time it is appearing in English.  The translation is by Ms. Zaremba:

Rhetoric, Limerick, Winnie the Pooh and Nobel Too

By Bozena U. Zaremba

Bozena U. Zaremba: Although you are commonly perceived as a humorist, I wanted to open our conversation on a more serious note, that is, your academic interests. The main field of your research is rhetoric, a fascinating area on the borderline of linguistics, psychology, and philosophy or even ethics. Why did you decide to engage in this discipline?

Michal Rusinek: I have always been attracted to marginal and overlapping areas. I think I would probably drown if I were to take up some mainstream current. However, I am not interested in all the subjects that you have mentioned, least in psychology, probably. I see rhetoric studies as a meeting ground for literary studies and linguistics, which for some time now have visibly gone apart.

You are trying to attract wider audiences to this subject, mainly through television and radio; together with Aneta Zalazinska you have also written a book on rhetoric for ordinary people, if you will.

That is true. At some point I realized that my Ph.D. thesis, which had been published a few years before, could be understood by very few people, just like most doctoral theses these days. I am not trying to brag here. These days, academic research on the whole is suffering from enormous specialization. Rhetoric, on the other hand, is not only a subject of theoretical studies, but also an inherent part of our everyday life.  I was trying to translate some of my theoretical ideas (and those of my co-author, who is a linguist) into a simpler language and to write sort of a course book.

Is rhetoric teachable?

Not in a traditional sense, I think, but you can sensitize people to some language issues. You can teach them how to become more conscious of what is useful in their own language and what is not, as well as how to overcome those linguistic obstacles that hinder communication.

What are the most important guidelines for using rhetoric effectively?

Most of all, you need to listen to other people and to watch how they react to what you say. Some people believe that the most important thing is to learn how to speak fluently for a long time, like in a monologue. False. It is the dialogue that constitutes the principal form of communication. While kids in America start to learn how to speak effectively in pre-school, in Poland it’s still unheard of.

Who are the students participating in the rhetoric graduate courses that you teach at the Jagiellonian University?

Half of them are Catholic priests, who get a chance to widen the homiletics, which they study in seminaries, with “secular” communication. Next, we have spokesmen, who want to learn how to conduct meetings and how to take a stand in public debates. From time to time, we get an interesting case, like that nurse who worked at a hospice and wanted to learn how to talk about death, to the patients and their close ones. She said she wanted to distance herself from her words and from her emotions. It was a great challenge for us.

You have recently translated two collections of poems about Winnie the Pooh and Christopher Robin, When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six into Polish. Why Milne?

It was partly coincidence, partly impudence [laughs]. I was offered this translation and eventually thrown into deep water. I do have some ease in rhyming and I love playing with rhymes, but these are not just rhymes, but literary classics! In the process, I faced two prior translations into Polish: on the one hand that by Antoni Marianowicz and Irena Tuwim, and on the other hand, by Zofia Kierszys, and thus found myself between a not-so-true but beautiful translation and a true but more prosaic one. And this is where I eventually tried to stay – in the middle.

It’s fascinating that these poems can be equally appreciated by adults.

Absolutely. They can be read at least on two levels. They are for children in the same way as they are about children. They show us that childhood is not some idyllic time at all. Just the opposite – a child is simply a little man who finds himself lonely in the world of adults. Christopher Milne, who was the addressee of these poems and had a somewhat difficult relationship with his father, said that it was only after he had read these poems – he was already grown-up at that time – that he started to appreciate how much his father actually understood him.

What is your key to a good translation?

I try not to be too theoretical about it; I do it intuitively to a great extent. But my fundamental belief is that there is no such thing as “kids’ language.” Kids speak the language of their parents first, then the language of their peers. So I try not to make it childlike – or childish, if you will – at any cost. While I was working on Peter Pan, for example, I noticed that the language of the original was somewhat old-fashioned, so I made up a non-existent language – imaginary, wishful language for intelligent kids. I did the same with Charles Schulz’s Peanuts.

Let’s stay within the English literary tradition and talk about limericks. They seem to be experiencing a real renaissance on the Polish literary scene, especially in Krakow. There is even a Limerick Lodge, of which you are Great Master. Is it art or just literary fun?

I think it is an ill-posted question (with all due respect.) If we look at the etymology of the word “art” we find its origin in techne, which in Greek means craft. In Poland especially, we think of poetry as something that aspires to the higher, the farther, and the deeper. Poles envision a poet as a Romantic figure who is leaning over his hand with a longing look on his face, but it is often forgotten that a poet, besides mere inspiration, must possess craft. And it is the craft that is crucial in the literature of nonsense. This genre had not been treated seriously in Poland for a long time. When the a5 Publishing Company published the anthology of pure nonsense and absurd literature entitled The Purple Cow, translated and edited by Stanislaw Baranczak*, it did not sell very well. But this is a fantastic book, a milestone in the Polish literary tradition! It was only when Wislawa Szymborska openly admitted to writing such poems, did the general public change their attitude. Thanks to limericks people realized the existence of aristocratic and city humor. Limericks have the elegance – at least in its form – on the one hand and on the other hand the frivolousness, but in white gloves.

What about epitaphs and their twisted humor?

This is also deeply rooted in English tradition, because in Poland, you must be very serious about death matters; you are not supposed to laugh at death. When we published The Epitaphs for the In- and Outsiders of the New Province** with epitaphs for our living friends and acquaintances, the newspapers raved about it, and people realized that this could be very entertaining. And mind you, such an attitude does not correspond to the Romantic paradigm of poetry.

Some say that it was your sense of humor that got you the job of Wislawa Szymborska’s secretary.

That is quite probable, because she would not be able to bear with anybody who lacked sense of humor.

I know you are often nagged about her so I hope you don’t mind talking about her just a little bit?

Absolutely not. I owe a great deal to Mrs. Szymborska. I believe it is thanks to her that I dared to publish my own work. She often looks at my writing and makes comments. Besides, she is “contagious” – she is so playful with words, also in everyday life. This proves that she treats language very seriously.

What is “Wislawa Szymborska’s Bureau”?

Oh, this is just my cell phone and a laptop [laughs]. She does not need a secretary as an institution. This official name exists only to keep her private address… well, private.

She is a very private person – she is notorious for her shyness; she avoids the media; she does not give interviews. Is it partly because whatever she wants to tell the world she tells in her poems?

Yes, I think so.

Is it hard to be a „shield” for a Nobel Laureate?

It is, sometimes, or especially when, in my mind, the offer she gets seems to create a terrific opportunity. But on the other hand, when I sense that afterwards it might cause her suffering, I withdraw, and truly, I never insist on anything. If she says “no” I do not discuss the matter any further.

Do you mind when people perceive you first of all as Wislawa Szymborska’s secretary?

I don’t think it is bad when I am introduced in the media as her secretary, because it is true, and it is an honor. What I don’t like is when it is inadequate or sensational. It also makes me laugh when some journalists, under the pretext of promoting my new book, ask about her and only that part is left in the published interview.

Are there any other literary areas that you would still like to pursue?

I would not necessary like to, but somehow do. There are not many “rhyming” translators in Poland and I have been showered with translations of musicals. I have just finished Duke Ellington’s Sophisticated Ladies. These are fabulous songs from the thirties and the biggest challenge is this swinging rhythm, so difficult to convey in the lengthy Polish language. Also recently, I have translated songs for another musical Jekyll and Hyde, which premiered last fall.

Is there a common ground for all the things that you do?

Yes, definitely. It is the language itself. I work with it, I play with it, and I reflect upon it.

Thank you very much.

The interview was originally conducted in Polish and then translated into English by the author.  It was first published in Przeglad Polski, a cultural weekly (now monthly) for Nowy Dziennik (Polish Daily News) in New York.

*Renowned Polish poet, translator, literary critic, and Professor of Slavic Languages and Literature at the Harvard University.

**Trendy cafe in the Old Town district of Krakow, place for informal gatherings of artists and for literary promotions; occasionally operates as a publishing house.

Wisława Szymborska Died Today

Wisława Szymborska died today in Poland.  There was nothing about it in the New York Times, but there probably will be.  She was a great poet and won the Nobel Prize in Poetry back in 1996. 

She is one of my favorite poets.  She has the kind of strength in the face of real trouble that I admire and wish I had.  She survived the Nazis and the Communists and lived to talk about it with clarity, honesty, humor, and charm.  

Here are two of her poems:.  "On Death, Without Exaggeration" and "The End and the Beginning" (my favorite):

On Death, without Exaggeration 

It can't take a joke,
find a star, make a bridge.
It knows nothing about weaving, mining, farming,
building ships, or baking cakes.

In our planning for tomorrow,
it has the final word,
which is always beside the point.

It can't even get the things done
that are part of its trade:
dig a grave,
make a coffin,
clean up after itself.

Preoccupied with killing,
it does the job awkwardly,
without system or skill.
As though each of us were its first kill.

Oh, it has its triumphs,
but look at its countless defeats,
missed blows,
and repeat attempts!

Sometimes it isn't strong enough
to swat a fly from the air.
Many are the caterpillars
that have outcrawled it.

All those bulbs, pods,
tentacles, fins, tracheae,
nuptial plumage, and winter fur
show that it has fallen behind
with its halfhearted work.

Ill will won't help
and even our lending a hand with wars and coups d'etat
is so far not enough.

Hearts beat inside eggs.
Babies' skeletons grow.
Seeds, hard at work, sprout their first tiny pair of leaves
and sometimes even tall trees fall away.

Whoever claims that it's omnipotent
is himself living proof
that it's not.

There's no life
that couldn't be immortal
if only for a moment.

Death
always arrives by that very moment too late.

In vain it tugs at the knob
of the invisible door.
As far as you've come
can't be undone.

The End and the Beginning

After every war
someone has to clean up.
Things won't
straighten themselves up, after all.

Someone has to push the rubble
to the sides of the road,
so the corpse-laden wagons
can pass.

Someone has to get mired
in scum and ashes,
sofa springs,
splintered glass,
and bloody rags.

Someone must drag in a girder
to prop up a wall.
Someone must glaze a window,
rehang a door.

Photogenic it's not,
and takes years.
All the cameras have left
for another war.

Again we'll need bridges
and new railway stations.
Sleeves will go ragged
from rolling them up.

Someone, broom in hand,
still recalls how it was.
Someone listens
and nods with unsevered head.
Yet others milling about
already find it dull.

From behind the bush
sometimes someone still unearths
rust-eaten arguments
and carries them to the garbage pile.

Those who knew
what was going on here
must give way to
those who know little.
And less than little.
And finally as little as nothing.

In the grass which has overgrown
causes and effects,
someone must be stretched out,
blade of grass in his mouth,
gazing at the clouds.

___________________

Here's a link to the InfoPoland site at SUNY-Bufallo where you can find dozens of poems by Szymborska in English translation along with interviews.  Just click here.

What We Sign Up For: Poems by Lisa Siedlarz

For years, I've been teaching Lisa Siedlarz' first book of poems (I Dream My Brother Plays Baseball) in my War Stories class.  The book deals with her brother's tour of duty in the Afghanistan War and how his time there has shaped her.  It's an excellent book and always one of the high-points for me and my students.  Lisa's poems touch us all and tell us things about the post 9/11 wars that we all need to know.  

Lisa's new book, What We Sign Up For, builds on her previous book in ways that seem natural and necessary--adding more stories about her brother, herself, her family, and her friends and what we all sign up for when a loved one goes to war.

Here's one of the poems from What We Sign Up For, a persona poem about a friend of Lisa's who served in Iraq and has PTSD:


Don't Paint In Camels

Amazing creatures, really. The color of
heaped dunes, scorch just rolls over them.

I’ve marched their waveless beach, mirages
of smiles disarming and deadly. Those camels

marched knock-kneed and steady. Even under fire
they did not flinch. The mind is treacherous.

I see camels in stitches of multi-colored coats and falling foliage.
In burning bushes of autumn, red is an exploding oil well,

black clouds, souls of those who will never come home.
I’m fi ne now. I know I’m home when I hold my paint brush

and canvas, a good bottle of wine. I listen to the ocean’s
music, become grounded. I will not drown in the legs

of this merlot. Will capture spray of ocean on rocks,
paint a picture of a life not mine.

Bury me in the sand and I will envy how clouds move on
like breath. Cold doesn’t faze me, having walked

through dust-deviling hell where thoughts of winter saved
me from suff ocation. Here I sit on this beach, sand

slipping through my open fi ngers to reunite with kin.
Sand is color-blind. Drinks blood as if it were water.

_______________________________

To read more about What We Sign Up For, click here.  
To read my blog post about Lisa's I Dream My Brother Plays Baseball, click here.

The Polish Review seeks Editor-in-Chief

I received the following notice: 

The Polish Review: The Polish Review is a peer-reviewed, international, English language, interdisciplinary academic journal published by the Polish Institute of Arts & Sciences in America with the mission of disseminating scholarly materials in the various fields of Polish studies broadly defined to include Poland and the Polish diaspora. To accomplish its mission, The Polish Review publishes original research, review articles, book reviews, translations from significant Polish-language literature and other scholarly materials.

Responsibilities: The Editor is responsible for the content and quality of each issue of The Polish Review and makes the final decisions relating to the production of each issue. The Editor appoints (with the approval of the PIASA Board of Directors) the Editorial Board, Book Review Editor and other staff, and manages the work of the Editorial Board and Book Review Editor. The Editor actively solicits scholarly contributions to the Review; ensures the integrity of the peer review process and editorial standards for English usage, formatting, scholarly citation and civility; serves as liaison with the production staff and printer; and manages the production schedule for each issue of the Review. The Editor collaborates with and directs numerous assistant editors, guest editors, peer reviewers, and authors.

Qualifications: Required: earned doctorate in the humanities or social sciences; demonstrated teaching and research excellence in a field of Polish studies; excellent communication, organizational, and management skills; ability to work well with a variety of people from various disciplines; familiarity with the requisite computer skills to conduct the normal business of the editorial office through e-mail and other electronic media as needed. Preferred: bi-lingual skills in English and Polish; prior editorial experience.

Terms of Appointment: Initial Appointment is for three years with the possibility of renewals.

Application Process: Applications and nominations—as well as any questions about the position—should be directed by e-mail to the committee chair, Dr. James S. Pula, at: jpula@pnc.edu. Applications will be accepted until the position is filled.

Show Up, Look Good: A New Novel by Mark Wisniewski

Mark Wisniewski, author of Confessionsof a Polish Used Car Salesmen, has recently published his second novel, Show Up, Look Good.  The novel relates the adventures of a young Midwestern woman who hopes to get over a failed relationship by moving to Manhattan. 

Here’s what Kelly Cherry, the Poet Laureate of Virginia, says about it:

“This novel about a thirty-something woman who travels from Kankakee, Illinois, to New York to ‘make it’ deepens in unexpected and moving ways. Wisniewski ventriloquizes with perfect pitch his female narrator, who has a real talent for getting into trouble.  Show Up, Look Good  is funny, dark, poignant, and unsettling.”

Here's an excerpt from the novel:

The ground floor window under my room exploded, glass raining onto the sidewalk. Smoke twisted out and rose.

“Joyce better leave,” I said.

Ernest wrote:

FIRE ESCAPE

IN BACK.

“Good,” I said, and he nodded, and I did, too, and I was glad Tino was in Etta’s section of the building’s back yard: with the firemen now inside, I trusted he’d be safe there. Then I wasn’t so sure. To distract myself from worry, I asked Ernest, “What was in your duffel bag?”

MEMORABILIA.

I WAS

GOING TO

SELL IT.

Another window exploded, and then they were exploding from left to right, ax-heads popping through them like iron tongues. This is serious, I almost said, but the escaping smoke tapered off. Then axes shattered two second-floor windows. I glanced at Ernest, whose eyes were fixed on the window to my room, and his expression assured me that he, unlike Joyce, knew that heat and smoke ascended, and that he was picturing Joyce dashing through Etta’s dark hallway while his duffel bag remained beside a bra on my floor.

“Excuse me,” I told him.

I crossed the street, accelerated toward the building, and a fireman yelled, “Ma’am. Where you going?”

“I’ve got to get something,” I said. “Just a duffel bag. Before it burns.”

“It’s burning.”

“What if it’s still there?”

“It’s burning. You might as well phone your insurance.”

“I can’t run up and check?”

“We just got everyone out of there. You run up and I lose my job.” He clutched an industrial-size crowbar. “So you’re not running up.”

I nodded and walked back to Ernest. We stood beside each other, neither speaking nor writing, just watching more onslaughts of smoke. Then a hand squeezed my shoulder hard enough to portend rudeness. Joyce? I thought, and I turned and saw Etta pulled up as close to my left as Ernest was to my right.

“Etta,” I said, “can you believe this?”

“Unfortunately,” she said.

“At least we’re out here,” I said, but my insides churned—because if the third floor caught fire, our living arrangement might end. “Tino’s out back,” I said. “In the yard.”

Ernest thickened a period and handed his notepad to me, and Etta read it as I did:

I HOPE

JOYCE

BRINGS

MY DUFFEL

BAG.

“So do I,” I said.

“What was in his duffel bag?” Etta asked me, and before I could answer, another fire truck rounded the corner. Ernest and I exchanged glances. He shrugged. Then the second-floor window beneath mine exploded without the help of an ax. Inside that room, the tips of flames stretched into view. Ernest’s breathing grew vexed, then worse. He had only so much memorabilia, I was sure, and he was probably picturing his last aged and genuine baseball singe, and his autograph on that baseball could have made someone happy—and helped Ernest afford more of the city. I felt sorry for the person the memorabilia might have made happy, and for Ernest himself. I felt ashamed that I’d fantasized about Letterman while Ernest’s future had burned.

“If the whole building goes,” I said to myself out loud, and then I babbled about how I’d just begun to get my life together, about how Manhattan was the only place open enough to let me be who I really was, and about who knows what else. As I said these things, I used phrases made common on talk shows and felt destined to make an awful impression on Ernest, but I babbled on anyway, and then I tried to explain to Ernest that, for most of my life (which, granted, I added, had been less than half of his), all of my trying and talking and lovemaking and understanding had done nothing but separate me from everyone else. Then I noticed that his breathing had gone silent, and I turned to see his pencil finish a message:

I KNOW

WHAT YOU

MEAN.

“Do you really?”

He nodded, sat on the curb, and watched the flames rise. Then he lay back so that his legs were splayed on the street, his spine flat against a sidewalk dotted by black, discarded gum. He shut his eyes and placed his palms down, one on top of the other, on his chest.

“Will you watch it?” I yelled at a woman who nearly stepped on his head, but she kept on walking, so I hoped for a response from Ernest.

His eyes stayed shut. He can’t, I thought, handle the city right now.

“Ernest?” I tried.

Someone tapped my shoulder: Joyce, hugging Tino, then handing him to Etta. “Ernest is napping,” she said. “He does this wherever he feels.”

Etta glanced over. “Is he okay?” she asked me.

“I’d say he’s felt better,” I said.

“I took CPR at the gym,” a guy on the sidewalk behind us said. “If anyone here can help, it’s me.” This guy was huge, maybe three hundred pounds, and he planted his feet on either side of Ernest’s chest, then crouched so his ass touched Ernest’s abdomen, then rested on it.

“And I’m engaged to this man,” Joyce said. “Do you see what I have to put up with?”

“You’re smothering him,” I told the fat guy.

“I’m helping him,” he said.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “He doesn’t need CPR. It’s a breathing thing.”

He placed a palm on Ernest’s chest and pressed. “It’s his heart,” he said, and I grabbed his gargantuan arm and tried to shove him off of Ernest, but he didn’t budge. I pushed again, using strength I hadn’t expected, and he let go of Ernest’s dwindled shoulders and rolled onto the sidewalk. He was lying beside Ernest, straining to sit up, but I didn’t see him rise: I was hovering over Ernest, pinching his nose and grabbing the skin where his jaw was supposed to be, and lowering the flabby remains of his chin. Then I was descending, hoping Ernest’s eyes would open before our lips touched. Then we were sharing his silence. His mouth was warm, and I exhaled into it, and my palm, on his chest, rose slightly. I won’t have to do this more than twice, I thought, and I inhaled, tasting garlic, halitosis, and cinnamon. I heard glass pelt the sidewalk across the street. I tried not to hear the fat guy, who was shouting at me with instructions. One more time, I told myself, and I’ll hear that troubled breathing. Everything will be exactly the way it was.

_______________________________________________

Mark Wisniewski is the author of the novel Confessions of a Polish Used Car Salesman, the collection of short stories All Weekend with the Lights On, and the book of narrative poems One of Us One Night. His fiction has appeared in magazines such as The Southern Review, Antioch Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, TriQuarterly, New England Review, The Gettysburg Review, The Yale Review, The Sun, andThe Georgia Review, and has been anthologized in Pushcart Prize and Best American Short Stories. His narrative poems have appeared in such venues as Poetry International, New York Quarterly, and Poetry. He’s been awarded two Regents’ Fellowships in Fiction, an Isherwood Fellowship in Fiction, and first place in competitions for the Kay Cattarulla Award for Best Short Story, the Gival Press Short Story Award, and the Tobias Wolff Award.

Show Up, Look Good is available from Amazon and Gival Press, the publisher.

Two Review Poetry Contest Deadline Extended

I just got this information from Jeremy Edward Shiok that Two Review has extended its deadline for its poetry contest, a contest that I am judging. Here's all the info:

Two Review

A Journal of International Poetry & Creative Nonfiction

2011 Poetry Contest

Judge: John Guzlowski

1st Prize: $100 2nd Prize: $50 3rd Prize: $25

Prizes include publication in the 2012 issue of Two Review. All submissions considered for publication.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

Submit up to five (5) unpublished poems, brief bio, and $10.00 contest fee at www.tworeview.weebly.com.

DEADLINE

December 30th, 2011

ABOUT TWO REVIEW

Two Review is an annual independent journal of international poetry and creative nonfiction committed to publishing the best original work available. Two Review seeks writing about the modern world, its inhabitants, and the events that shape them. The editors believe art is not a foreigner on the geopolitical landscape, and for this reason they promote work by poets, writers, and artists who are aware of more than themselves and show us the world as it celebrates and as it struggles. All topics that illuminate the human experience are welcome as long as the writing is grammatically strong and syntactically unique.

Two Review is featured at select independent booksellers across the U.S. Copies are also submitted to non-lending libraries at national poetry centers including The University of Arizona Poetry Center, Richard Hugo House in Seattle, The Poetry Center of Chicago, The Stadler Center for Poetry in Pennsylvania, and Poets House in New York City.

Polish American in the Mohawk Valley

I received this note from Daniel Weaver of the journal Upstream:

I have founded a cultural and counter-cultural review here in the Mohawk Valley. Our second issue is going to focus on Polish-Americans in the Mohawk Valley. I have already received a great essay on Joseph Vogel and a current Polish-American memoirist is interviewing former Lt. Governor Marianne Krupsak for the second issue.

I would love to receive some more essays and articles about Joseph Vogel plus almost anything relating to Polish-Americans in this part of New York State.

I only can pay $25-$50 per article. For more information about the journal check out www.upstreamjournal.wordpress.com. To read more about what I am looking for in the second issue, check out this post http://upstreamjournal.wordpress.com/2011/04/13/looking-ahead-to-upstream-2-and-upstream-3/.

I do publish a certain amount of material not related to the Mohawk Valley and/or by non-residents of the Mohawk Valley.

The deadline is December 15, 2011