Sylwia Szulc University of Warsaw May, 2012 Translating Edward Stachuras Canto Dziecica powaga

Lots of Fire (1963), Stachuras first long narrative poem, made a clear impact on the Polish literary scene. After One Day (1962), a short stories collection, it was his second book to be published. It certainly was not by chance that Stachura chose to call the sections of his poem pieni. Was the choice dictated by Ezra Pounds influence? In her doctoral dissertation on Stachura, Sylwia Ejmont remarks: Stachuras extensive indebtedness to Pound demands a separate study; all too often the readers trick themselves into imagining that Stachura drew everything he has ever written directly, as it were, from the open Polish landscape instead of other peoples books 1. Ejmont, who translated only the title and six verses of Dziecica powaga for the purpose of her dissertation, surprisingly preferred to render the word pie, which repeatedly accompanies each of the poems sections, as song instead of canto2. I believe that the latter would strengthen the association between the young Stachura and Pound. How and in what language Stachura became familiar with Pounds poetic theory and literary output remains unknown, but undoubtedly he was under the strong influence of the American poet. In his river-narration Wszystko jest poezja (1975), Stachura even imagines meeting Pound in one of the chapters of the book 3. Did Stachura find Pounds famous interjection Make it new!, correspond to his own poetic inclinations? Lots of Fire is characterised by the elevated tone and numerous allusions to classical works of literature, but simultaneously Stachura gives a markedly modern twist to the subject matter and linguistic form of his cantos. However, he does it on his own terms. Lacking Pounds background and erudition, rather than refreshing the old classics, Stachura had to invent his own poetic voice. One of the cantos in the poem, Dziecica powaga4, is a sui-generis testimony of the poets artistic development and the epitome of his youthful mannerism. The specific use of
1

S. Ejmont (2008), The Troubadour Takes The Tram: Experience in Polish Poetry and Music , http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/60649/1/sylwia_1.pdf , p. 118. 2 ibid. , p. 83. 3 E. Stachura (1984) Poezja i proza. Vol.4, Wszystko jest poezja. Ed. by Krzysztof Rutkowski, Warszawa: Czytelnik, pp. 62-65. 4 E. Stachura (1984) Poezja i proza. Vol.1, Wiersze, poematy, piosenki, przekady . Ed. by Ziemowit Fedecki. Warszawa: Czytelnik, pp. 91-92.

the language could not go unnoticed among the readers or literary critics. But while the spoken colloquial Polish of Stachuras short stories was met mainly with positive reactions, his poetry exceeded the accepted norms of syntax and lexical imagery so much that at times it might have been seen as bordering on nonsense. Stachura was equally exceptional in his living as in his writing, apparently priding himself on the fact. He refused to comply with the commonly accepted rules, which earned him the desired literary reputation and mass popularity, but cost him his mental stability and, finally, life. Krzysztof Rutkowski distinguishes three stages in Stachuras development as a writer5. In the first stage, the poet experimented with violating and transgressing the linguistic norms, by fighting the established linguistic conventions. In the second, Stachura interpreted every aspect of life as the emanation of poetry (better or worse) and wanted to encapsulate everything in his writing. Finally, he renounced the written word altogether, having realized the utopia of his previous attempts at capturing the essence of all poetic experience in a written form. Lots of Fire exemplifies the first stage when the poet vigorously tried to break through the limiting literary conventions by linguistic means. In the series of cantos from the poem, Polish syntactic rules were abused by the frequent use of the infinitive verb forms, where they should have been inflected, or by the employment of inappropriate noun cases, where they normally would not occur. Jacek Trznadel criticised the poets odd mannerisms as Stachuras negro syntax (murzyska skadnia Stachury). Here is an excerpt from Trznadels review: A group of contemporary poets, suffering agonizing pains to attain linguistic originality, remind me somehow of the noble savage myth found in travel writing and juvenile fiction from the turn of the century. Some kind of In Desert and Wilderness. What I mean here, is the linguistic myth, which makes Kali and Mea use exclusively infinitives (Kali do, see, cry), when it comes to verbs, thus extremely simplifying [my emphasis] the syntax of the incomprehensible and too difficult language. What resulted from ineptitude there, here is supposed to result from over-sophistication, from such an unrivalled command of language, which, in order to achieve freshness and new, exotic tones, needs to be violated6. While dealing with Stachuras linguistic experiments, the translator arrives at the problem of approaching the non-standard forms present in the original. Trznadel certainly was not alone in his negative reception of Stachuras idiosyncratic language. The critics associations with the childrens classic In Desert and Wilderness by Henryk Sienkiewicz,
5

K. Rutkowski (1987), Przeciw (w) literaturze. Esej o poezji czynnej Mirona Biaoszewskiego i Edwarda Stachury. Bydgoszcz: Pomorze. 6 J. Trznadel (1963), Na marginesie, Twrczo, No. 9, p. 64. All translations, if not indicated otherwise, are mine.

where the infinitive forms permeate Kali and Meas speech, might be valid even today. However, in English translation, it is possible to speak of the simplified conjugation of verb forms in the present simple tense only in the case of the third person singular, otherwise the forms are the same as that of the bare infinitive. The translator has to think of compensation strategies, which would render the foreign in the original and in doing so they might arrive at complicating rather than simplifying the syntax in order to achieve an unusual effect in translation. The verse: that the wind rose wont miss me, however surprising in its imagery, is grammatically correct. Only when we complicate the structure by inserting to in front of the verb, do we achieve the non-standard that the wind rose wont to miss me. The structure is violated, just as it is violated in the Polish version of the canto, though by reverse means. A similar difficulty arises on account of English having no noun-case inflections (apart from the Saxon genitive). Here the translators task is even more daunting as it is not always possible to render the strangeness of the uninflected, nominal-case Polish nouns. In several instances I decided to leave the standard sounding forms in the English translation in order to preserve the rhythm of the poem. The easiest non-standard linguistic feature (or indeed standard in modern poetry), is the lack of punctuation marks. Here it is enough to reproduce the layout of the original poem, together with its versification and the use of lower-case letters. The only doubt may concern capitalising the subject pronoun I. Should I be written with the upper case or should it follow the example of other missing punctuation devices? In the translation below I tried to render the corresponding English expressions by non-standard structures wherever possible:
Pie: Dziecica powaga Przywouj ci plaga i szaracza jeli dotkniesz mnie darem przestrzeni ktry mam na pewno ten dar i on nie tyle drzemie co pragnie jak ty pola chlebowe tresowa widziaem raz kiedy w dziecistwie i widz i pochyliem swj hod nie mogem wystawa co za gadko stodoy po tobie nic i ta ma po tobie ale w skrytoci ja jestem dumniejszy wiele i pragn dorwna znaczy pragn przewyszy i cigam ciebie lad twj wyrany Canto: Solemnity of a child I summon thee plague and locusts if you touch me with the gift of space which I have for sure this gift and it lies dormant not so much as it yearns as you bread fields drill I saw once in my childhood and see and I bent my tribute I could not protrude what smoothness of the barn after you nothing and this ointment after you but in secret I am much prouder and I wish to equal that is to surpass and Ive been chasing you your mark distinct

od tylu nocy e jedna moe mi da trafi i zabi ciebie nie bdc bdzie ju tkliwo ktra jest we mnie na pewno ten dar i on nie tyle drzemie co pragnie podziemia rozpostrzec na ki przestrzenie a ja bd namiot zasadzony pocztek inicja *** Bo skd by mnie odnale ra wiatrw gdyby nie wstydliwo epopei nieskalana dla ktrej zdobyem krainy takie e tylko wyrodno moja odnale krainy takie e tylko stopa moja nieludzka wyszuka w grach tak szczelnych okna szczupe ale jednak przecze taka wsko e tylko uk mj zwyciy szuka przecze takie e tylko ucho moje promie przelizn a potem zakwitn w soce opowie dla epopei suchanie niezmierzone takie e ju mnie ra wiatrw nie omin

for so many nights that one could let me hit and kill you being no longer there will be tenderness which is for sure in me this gift and it lies dormant not so much as it yearns the underworld to spread on meadowland spaces and I will be a tent planted the beginning initial *** Because how me find the wind rose if not the modesty immaculate of the epic for which I conquered such lands that only my disgrace find such lands that only my inhuman foot encounter in the mountains so tight thin windows but still passes such narrowness that only my bow will win encounter such passes that only my ear a ray slip and then flourish into the sun a story for the epic listening so immeasurable that the wind rose wont to miss me

It is not only the syntax, which makes the poem exotic, but also Stachuras perception of the world, which is typified by his selection of words and the way he juxtaposes them. Many of the evoked images have a synaesthetic quality, combining several senses together or substituting one for another. The words smoothness and ointment stand for the sense of touch, but at the same time they bring to mind stillness (the sense of hearing) and emptiness (the sense of sight) followed by the ensuing vision of hunger (the sense of taste) after the plague and locusts have flown away, leaving behind the overall sense of peace. But here, the effort of interpretation lies mainly with the reader. For the translator working on Stachuras poem, the most challenging task is to find the right balance between the standard and the non-standard in the translation.