Plume Issue #158 October 2024

Two poems by Krystyna Lenkowska translated from Polish by Cecilia Woloch

POLISH NATIONAL RAILWAY

When I was young
the trains were smelly
late and crammed

today in the dining car I’m old
I eat bulgur with vegetables
and don’t recognize my face
in the clean window

I study the cycle of change
the law and lawlessness of fate

clean — dirty
fast — slow
empty — cramped

only handsome students standing
near the WC
haven’t changed

and the pissed-on urinal


PKP

Kiedy byłam młoda
pociągi były niedomyte
spóźnione i ciasne

dziś w Warsie jestem stara
jem kaszę bulgur z warzywami
i nie poznaję swojej twarzy
w czystej szybie

studiuję cykl zmiany
oraz prawo i bezprawie losu

czysto – brudno
szybko – wolno
ciasno – luźno

nie zmieniają się tylko przystojni studenci
na miejscach stojących pod WC

i obsikany pisuar.


I’M A BITCH

lying on the sofa
fat and sprawling

I’ve given birth to three pups
lost two

the third one is trampling on me now
sucks my ear
looks into my eyes

I don’t know if I can cope with
this trust

for as long as I can remember
I’ve been in postpartum
shock


JESTEM SUKĄ

Leżę na sofie
gruba i rozwalona

urodziłam trzy szczeniaki
dwa straciłam

trzeci depcze po mnie
ssie moje ucho
zagląda mi w oczy

nie wiem czy sprostam
tej ufności

od kiedy sięgam pamięcią
jestem w szoku
poporodowym.

Cecilia Woloch on translating 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 nuances 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, and sound, and context. This is challenging, of course, because Polish and English have very different sonic qualities, and they operate very differently, grammatically. And while Krystyna’s poems might, at first glance, 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, but wonderfully rich, both frustrating and deeply satisfying for someone who’s in love with language.

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