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Janusz
Zalewski writes about his recent visit to Chicago and his meeting with Polish-American
writer and MacArthur Fellowship recipient Stuart Dybek. Mr. Dybek delivered the Keynote Address at
the meeting of the Polish-American Librarians Association, held at the Polish Museum of America on February 24th.
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Stuart Dybek began his
keynote address by reading his poem “Penance,” from his first collection Brass Knuckles (1979). The poem was also published the following
year in the anthology of Polish-American poetry Blood of Their Blood, edited by Victor Contoski, in which Dybek was
featured among a few dozen other authors.
The poem “Penance” is very characteristic to Dybek’s writing at that
time, with his childhood, religion, humor and emotions in it, all on the
broader background of ethnicity.
Then, because this was a librarians’ meeting, he talked about his countless visits to Chicago
libraries, which were to him both secret and sacred places in his childhood,
where he could immerse himself in dreams and “sail with Magellan, Jack London”
and others. Marshall Square Library was
the one he said he attended most.
He talked
about being a reader and about the act of reading being a form of art. Readers, Dybek says, are dreamers and
artists. Reading is definitely a more
active form of perception than viewing other forms of art, which is closer to
plain consumption. For example, watching
a movie or listening to music is essentially engaging senses without actively
participating in the process. Only
dancing to music can be compared to reading a book. In this analogy, reading becomes closer to
writing than anyone would imagine, because there is only one step from reading
Dostoevsky to grabbing a pen.
For a writer,
he continued, readings in a library are very different from readings at
universities. The diversity of people
coming to the library makes it so attractive.
All the characters from various populations, ages and ethnic groups form
a truly amazing and attentive audience.
Dybek said
that on the East or West Coast he is known as a Chicago writer, but for someone
who lives in Chicago it is clear that Chicago writers are categorized as
neighborhood writers. As much as Saul
Bellow wrote about Hyde Park, Farrell and Algren wrote about their
neighborhoods, Dybek’s writing is immersed in Chicago’s South Side, in
particular Pilsen. One of the reasons he
keeps writing about his neighborhood is that it is inescapable. Assimilation, race, ethnicity (which is a
currency of Chicago writing), dreams of democracy, promise of America, all this
makes a microcosm, in which it’s easier for a writer to meet his readers. Ethnicity especially is an enormous gift to a
writer, says Dybek.
Then, Dybek
addressed his heritage and talked about his Busia
(grandma), how much she affected him, and he refered to a story “Blood Soup” as
a tribute to her. Finally, interacting
with the audience, he recalled his multiple other stories, among them one about
his Dziadzia (grandpa), who along
with a mule was the only one to survivor a disaster in a coal mine. He was a tough character.
After the
presentation, Stuart and I wandered around the old Polish neighborhood that’s
the home for the Polish Museum of America.
On a way for dinner we stopped at the Chopin Theatre, at the corner of
Division and Milwaukee, an amazing place led by an even more amazing man,
Zygmunt Dyrkacz. Next door, sitting at
the bar in “Podhalanka,” we recall when Dziadzia used to bring young Stuart
(they called him Stuluś), placed him on a bar and ordered to sing for the
audience. The evening gets closer and
it’s time to go home.
Dybek's most recent book of stories is I Sailed with Magellan. Two new
collections by Dybek are due this year from Farrar, Straus and Giroux. One piece of a short fiction titled “Trust
Cuts Both Ways” that made it into the first book, Paper Lantern, is included
below. It was originally printed in a short-lived
magazine named Joe, published by
Starbucks, in 1999.
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Penance
It was always
Good Friday
those
Saturday afternoons.
Stooped
babkas in black coats
and
babushkas, kneeling
in marble
aisles
before racks
of vigil candles,
faces buried
in hands.
Weeping
echoes through the dim church
as foreign as
their droned
language of
prayer.
I stood in line
waiting the
priest’s question,
“Alone or
with others?”
and my turn
in Confession
trying to
imagine
the terrible
sins of old women.
Trust Cuts Both Ways
- “Do you
fantasize about me?” - she asked.
- “Sure” – he
said, not volunteering any more information.
- “I have the
oddest fantasies about what I’d like to do with you.” – she said.
- “Like what,
for instance?”’
- “I want to
shave you.”
- “I want to
shave you too.” – he said.
- “Not that
way” – she said. – “I mean it. I picture you soaking in a steamy tub, a
beautiful
old claw
footer, and I lather your beard with a boar-bristle brush. I even know where they
sell them –
at Crabtree & Evelyn. Then, you lie
back and close your eyes, and with an old-
fashioned
straight razor that makes the sexiest scraping sound, I give you the best,
closest
shave you’ll
ever have. Shave you clean and smooth and rinse your skin as if I’m your
geisha.”
- “Sounds
nice – he said, rather than tell her there was no way in hell she was getting
near him with a razor.”
Stuart Dybek
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Janusz Zalewskis has translated a number of works by Stuart Dybek into Polish:
:
- „Nie udało nam się“ (We Didn’t), in Odra, No. 12/2004
- „Pan
Placki” (The Palatski Man), in Arcana, No. 57/2004
- „Czarny Anioł” (Black Angel) and „Wietrzne miasto”
(Windy City), in Nowa Okolica Poetów, No. 18-19/2005.
An extensive biographical note and links to some of Stuart Dybek's other writings are available at the Poetry Foundation. Click here.
An extensive biographical note and links to some of Stuart Dybek's other writings are available at the Poetry Foundation. Click here.
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