Striking the Chords of Spirit and Flesh in Polish Poetry. A Serendipity

This collection, as indicated in the sub-title, “A Serendipity”, makes no claim to present a complete and panoramic overview of Polish poetry, even of Polish poetry that is related to the chosen theme. The essays deal with a mixture of more and less well-known poets from the Baroque era to the present. Some have been translated into English, many not; the translations provided in the latter case are largely provisional, but if the essays serve to inspire some reader to remedy this situation by taking an interest in a so-far officially untranslated Polish poet, then this book will have served a useful purpose. The final essay in the collection, which is a case study by the outstanding translator Bill Johnston of translation problems in relation to the contemporary poet Eugeniusz Tkaczyszyn-Dycki, may also act as a particular encouragement in this respect; but Johnston is not the only one of the authors of the essays presented here to take an interest in questions of translation. Wacław Grzybowski, in particular, draws attention to some of the differences in sound quality as well as grammatical structure between Polish and English so as to reveal some aspects of Karol Wojtyła’s poetry that disappear from view in the English translation.