An interview with Adam Zagajewski

CERTAIN ENVY OF AMERICANS

An interview with Adam Zagajewski

The interview is related to The Meeting of Poets – a meeting between Polish and American poets organized yearly since 2002 by Adam Zagajewski and Edward Hirsch in Krakow. Partially sponsored by the University of Houston.

Krystyna Lenkowska: You manage to gather in one place so many literary celebrities: Nobel Prize winners Czesław Miłosz and Seamus Heaney, as well as W.S. Merwin, Edward Hirsch, Robert Hass, C.K. Williams from the US, Thomas Venclova from Lithuania, Eavan Boland from Ireland, Julia Hartwig from Warsaw and many others. I wonder whether this is proof of your managerial talents; your attention to others, and your strong social instincts. Your talents seem to channel your energy towards creating the context of another[1] presence that is physical, intellectual, creative and significant. And is all this in defence of fervour[2]?

Adam Zagajewski: I see it differently, quite differently. I have no managerial talents. I have to say that I am an introvert, I hate managing and I am not good at it. This Meeting of Poets was the only practical idea I have ever had and it occurred to me kind of naturally. I have been going to Houston to teach for years. With time I became familiar with certain circles, I made friends in Houston and other parts of America. A year ago I moved from France back to Poland. So coming up with an idea for this event was almost inevitable. Also, I felt that I had to organize it because there was a need. My students had for a long time been interested in Polish poetry – especially, but not limited to, Miłosz. Miłosz lives in Krakow and he is, after all, getting older, does not travel any more. All this led to The Meeting of Poets. I entertained this idea for years, but I was afraid to realize it because I knew I would have to do things I hate, ie. organize.

KL: Still, you are turning your attention to others. Thanks to this event we got to know American poets and they got to discover other Polish poets. This is all about wonderful interpersonal relations. So you don’t seem to be much of an introvert.

AZ: We don’t need any special analysis to define what it means to be an introvert. It does not exclude being interested in others, but it means a resentment of pragmatic and managerial actions to a degree. Naturally, whoever reads and writes poetry is interested in other poets. It is impossible to live in a soap bubble and read only our own poems or poetry of past authors. However, this interest does not mean only attention directed at other persons, but also poetic friendship. Edward Hirsch and I have been friends for years. We worked together for many years at the University [of Houston]. C.K. Williams, who lives between Paris and Princeton, is also my longtime friend. Our university semesters in the US coincided and for years he was my brother in arms in Paris. So poetic friendships are important here. Poetry is a discipline which somehow leads to friendship. Poetic friendships are something very classic. Besides, these are friendships of introverts, for me very important and interesting. Of course not all of those invited are as close friends of mine as, say C.K. Williams, Ed Hirsch, Rosanna Warren, or Bob Hass, not to mention the Polish poets.

KL: As we know from history, Poles were at various difficult times united by fervour. Do you think we are lacking this fervour now, in the face of the consumerist totalitarianism of the 21^st century?

AZ: Fervour in what domain?

KL: Any. There exist certain national stereotypes. Poles are perceived as passionate; when they fight or love they do it with all their heart. From a foreign perspective, doesn’t it seem to you that the Poles, faced with the capitalist consumerism surrounding them, have lost some of that fervour?

AZ: It is difficult to say. First of all, I think the consumerist revolution is happening in a very strange and uneven manner. There are large areas of poverty where the word “consumption” sounds offensive because people there live a very modest life. Sometimes through their own fault, and sometimes it is the fault of circumstances or geography or lack of education. Therefore, what you are saying would rather apply to a richer country. I still see Poland as a very poor place where only islands of consumerism can be found. Is this enough to affect the attitude of the Poles? I suppose so. Judgements of this kind are very difficult since they are, in a sense, anthropological, they relate to types of people, particular people. However, I can see [changes] in the structure of literary criticism. Although the new [political]system has many advantages, after all it is based on democracy combined with capitalism, it creates certain anarchy in areas like this. In the past there were people with greater authority, there were structured debates. I feel that nowadays it is missing. There are fewer literary publications. Although there are literary supplements to WYBORCZA and RZECZPOSPOLITA3 newspapers, they are also already slightly underpinned by commerciality. So there is definitely some kind of erosion of a certain intellectual model to which we have been accustomed. Despite difficulties, this model of discussion about literature has survived communism. It will probably not survive capitalism, however. Still, there are various things, various phenomena, which prevent me from becoming a huge pessimist. I see that the number of bookstores does not get smaller and that people read a lot. There are great poetry readings, such as those here, during American Days4. I do not have the impression that some cultural disaster has occurred. Maybe there was a moment of panic during the first years after the collapse of communism when new books, new types of American bestsellers aggressively entered the Polish market. There was a fear that the higher literary culture would disappear completely, but this did not happen. It is not literature but rather the model of discussion about literature that is changing. I believe that the negative phenomena are compensated by other things and it is really too early to tell what the new emerging model is like. But we definitely do not live in a literary desert.

KL: As we know, the main issue discussed during The Meeting of Poets was how Americans perceive Polish poetry, particularly contemporary authors such as Herbert, Miłosz, Szymborska, Różewicz, and this year also Aleksander Wat. Polish poetry arouses great emotions and is often admired by competent American circles. It does not seem to be a gesture of courtesy on the part of Americans, especially that they sponsor the event themselves. Is it possible to define elements that are characteristic of Polish poetry; the elements that differentiate it from poetry of other countries and are the object of American admiration?

AZ: They could be defined in some way . I can see several possibilities of a rather loose definition. It certainly is not courtesy. Americans, as you said, are too pragmatic to spend money and travel so far out of pure courtesy. I am sure they would not go to Romania or... I do not want to insult any countries. What attracts Americans the most? And not just them because there is a phenomenon of Polish poetry being translated in many other countries. I would say intellectual poetry responding to new historical situations. Polish poetry is neither hermetically locked in technical issues nor concentrated on purely individual emotions, although the latter is actually not bad in poetry. It is poetry that can magically combine strong artistic expression with philosophical reflection and response to certain events, or even more - certain challenges. This is something Americans are almost completely unable to do in poetry. They dream to find such a hold on the world that would allow to retain author’s individuality while responding to world events.

KL: Poets among themselves often say “It’s a good poem, but not metaphysical”. And this does not necessarily have anything to do with God. Could this admiration be also the result of American poetry lacking the metaphysical aspect?

AZ: I think that may be the case. It is a complex issue, but it must have something to do with what you are saying. Metaphysics can also be understood as radicalism in thinking, certain way of looking at the world. Sometimes even non-religious poets are metaphysical and assume a very radical viewpoint from which the world looks sharper. That may be what the Americans lack and what they are jealous about in Polish or Irish poetry, since contemporary Irish poets are the other object of American interest and certain envy.

KL: Zbigniew Herbert was the most frequently quoted poet during the meetings, even though it would seem that only something as important as the Nobel Prize can arouse American interest in a representative of such a hermetic discipline as poetry. Do you agree with those who say that outside of Poland you are an advocate of Herbert and many other Polish poets, and therefore an ambassador of Polish poetry as a whole?

AZ: At the risk of sounding a little pompous I will say that throughout my years of lecturing at the University of Houston I have been no more of an ambassador of Herbert than of Miłosz or Szymborska or Aleksander Wat. Actually, it was only to Miłosz that I once devoted a whole semester long seminar. Normally, my seminars are not devoted to one but to over a dozen authors. Last year was an exception because it was Miłosz’s ninetieth birthday. So in a purely statistical sense Miłosz wins. But if you found that Herbert was more frequently mentioned during the meetings, then perhaps it was an attempt to compensate for his temporary total absence from the American market. Very young students know nothing about him because right now none of his books are available in bookstores. There is a conflict between his heirs and the publisher, and between the publisher and the translators, which is very unfortunate. Maybe a desire to make up for this situation resulted in Herbert getting so much attention, but it is Miłosz who is the king in the landscape of Polish poetry.

KL: So after all it is the Nobel Prize that matters most?

AZ: I do not know whether it is the Nobel Prize or whether it is due to the fact that almost all of Miłosz’s works have been translated. He is a personality whose talent has two manifestations: as a poet and as a thinker. And both of them are well established; his more important books of essays and his poems are read and studied equally. It is very rare to find this kind of duality in an outstanding poet. He is a lyrical, reflective and historical poet, but at the same time almost a philosopher, reflecting in an exceptionally intelligent way on poetry and its place in the world. It is very unique. Perhaps Heaney, who is one generation younger, could be compared because he writes a lot of essays and thinks very meticulously about poetry. In America there are no poets who would have both these wings: poetry and volumes of essays. Almost every poet has published a volume of essays – Robert Hass has a volume of essays, so does C.K. Williams – but they do not have such expansive collections of essays as Miłosz. He is perceived as...

KL: A sage?

AZ: A sage. Yes, absolutely, this is a man for whom poetry is a way of finding wisdom, and who additionally uses the essay form to look for this wisdom.

KL: I will gladly come back to Czesław Miłosz, but I would like to return to Herbert for a moment. His name brought the word “irony” very often; irony as a form of disapproval of the state of things, a sublime rejection of disorder. A poem’s message suspended in irony is like a pause on the way to an unreachable conclusion. Edward Hirsch said that Herbert desperately tries to find a way of crossing the frontier of irony. You, however, argued many times that Herbert is not an ironic poet, especially in the general meaning of the word irony as concealed derision, mockery or malice. According to you, it is quite the opposite: by celebrating existence, Herbert creates an antidote to irony.

AZ: I can repeat what I have already said – I have an impression that we live in an ironic culture, which means that irony is the primary principle. I felt that in the face of this it was almost necessary to defend Herbert. If he is perceived as an ironic poet then, in a sense, he dissolves in the postmodern culture or the currently dominant literary culture. And not just literary because this reaches beyond literature. I see him as a poet who offers us a certain message, expressed most fully in the famous poem “The Envoy of Mr Cogito”, but also outside of poetry. In his later years Herbert turned out to be a person with very strong political and social views. It was always felt that he definitely had something to say. But he would never reveal his views because great poets do not do this. His message has always been shrouded in mystery. And the irony? This irony is directed not at the message but at the messenger. Herbert laughs at himself, at the fact that he does not measure up to the great message that he has to carry. And I think this is the most intriguing aspect of his poetry. A careful reader can see that he is a poet who defends certain things in a subtle and not didactic way. He is ironic, but this irony is reflective. Herbert says: look at me, who am I to tell you these great truths, and he laughs at himself. This is exactly what he means in “The Envoy of Mr Cogito” where he talks about his clown face. All this irony is directed at the author then, not the massage. To define his message however, would require a separate discussion. This message is mysterious and complex, otherwise Herbert would have been writing newspaper articles.

KL: So this irony is rather reflective than dramatic. Isn’t it however that, paradoxically, both those who say Herbert is an ironic poet and those who say he is not are right? And where is the uniting aspect?

AZ: You are right, he both is and is not an ironic poet. For me, the uniting element in Herbert’s poetry is irony directed downwards and seriousness directed upwards. All that is above or in front of us is treated extremely seriously, but all that we are and we can succeed at as poets and as humans is looked at with a little smile, a smile of leniency and tolerance.

KL: Sympathetic distance?

AZ: Sometimes sympathetic, sometimes also malicious, but this is about us. Certain values and faithfulness to something are never ridiculed.

KL: Another interesting topic was Aesthetic of repulsion exemplified by the poems of Herbert, Miłosz, Świrszczyńska, Różewicz, Szymborska, and Wat. On the one hand we are attracted by repulsion, on the other, we could say that repulsion as a form of expression is dialectically imposed on us. There are situations when repulsion is closer to the truth than rapture. And there are moments when being enchanted even by obvious icons of beauty may appear to be exaggerated aestheticism. You pointed to Apollo and Gioconda which, after the Holocaust, have been rejected in a way.

AZ: I feel like a student who has missed a lecture because I came in late. I know that Landon Godfrey, one of our students, discussed this subject with great enthusiasm. I must have left to bring something. I have to disappoint you but the leading thought of that discussion escaped me.

KL: Going back to Czesław Miłosz, he is usually the main celebrity of the event. American guests go on a pilgrimage to Gołębia street in order to listen to the professor who speaks excellent English. They hear wonderful anecdotes and great autobiographical stories which instantly become a part of the history of literature and perhaps also history of ideas. Younger poets and academics are given advice. It is mentorship, but above all those meetings are magical.

AZ: For me, right from the beginning this was almost the main aspect of those meetings which I had anticipated, planned and dreamt of. I wanted Miłosz, an extraordinary man of phenomenal intelligence who remembers everything, to meet with those young people. For me this is a great spectacle of his memory and the innocent curiosity of young people. They know a little about him because they all read him, many even outside of lectures, just for themselves. I could say he is a Pound to young poets. They conduct a dialogue with him and his writings, so obviously they are all very highly motivated. It is always an extraordinary event and it becomes a success if Miłosz is in good form and the students are not too shy to ask questions. The most important thing is that all those meetings were successful. Each of them differed slightly, but each was a wonderful confrontation of that man of phenomenal literary culture and intelligence with curiosity multiplied. Every young poet brought along his or her curiosity. For me, those seminars, those hours spent with Miłosz, were perhaps the most interesting moments of The Meeting of Poets.

KL: Edward Hirsch said that the whole group of American poets from Houston really comes to Krakow just for Miłosz. In those words you can detect not just courtesy, kindness and sense of humor of the American guest, but also uninhibited truth about the desire to meet a living legend. I think that thanks to you this confrontation was a dream come true for Edward Hirsch and other American poets, as well as for the students. Could we say that the event is also about the unique experience of being in the aura of a great poet? Do the students talk about it afterwards? What comments do they make behind the scenes?

AZ: Yes, definitely, they talk about it even after several months. I normally see them about six months later when I go to Houston in the middle of January. Last year, after the first meeting, the memories were very much alive even in February. These are undoubtedly great experiences. In a sense, America does not have a poet of such dimension and experience, who has such literary memory and whose achievements are both poetic and philosophical. There is Stanley Kunitz, who is older than Miłosz, but he is not an author of comparable dimension, he is not such an extraordinary poet as Miłosz. Obviously, meetings with Miłosz are something absolutely central to The Meeting of Poets. It is worth saying that it works both ways, as the meetings are important for Miłosz, too. He wants to say something to his guests. On the one hand there is curiosity of the younger poets and their gain from meeting Milosz. On the other, he also gains something because after all he used to be a teacher all his life and he comes back to that role with pleasure.

KL: As he himself says, he owes a lot of his literary knowledge to the fact that he was forced to give lectures.

AZ: Yes, and I think this is something that he misses now. The private existence that he leads today is not a bad thing and does not make him unhappy. But these meetings during which he becomes a sage surrounded by the young are something wonderful for him, they remind him of his days as a teacher. Paradoxically, when he was a Berkeley professor he was not as famous in America as he is now. He was a lecturer and probably some students did not even know that he wrote wonderful poems. Now he lives in the deserved glory of being a great poet. I am a little bit surprised that no one in Poland thinks about organizing similar meetings between Miłosz and young poets.

KL: I am under the impression that American intellectuals think that several generations of Poles have been brought up on Miłosz’s poetry. When it was mentioned that mainly due to political reasons it is not the case, they were surprised. Do you think it is to the benefit of Miłosz’s poetry that in the past it was not imposed on students as compulsory reading, as has been the case with Mickiewicz or Słowacki.5

AZ: I have not thought about it but yes, you are right. It is a good situation for him, you are absolutely right. However, in Poland Miłosz may be on a pedestal, but at the same time, he competes with other poets: father Twardowski, Herbert, Szymborska. And it is good for him that he has not become something of a living monument. And there are poets and readers who do not like Miłosz and reject him for some reason (even though I think they are wrong), but such polemic is good for the Miłosz phenomenon...

KL: He is still the subject of controversy even after winning the Nobel Prize?

AZ: My goodness, the Nobel Prize. This is not the voice of God, but only of the Nobel Academy. The greatness of Miłosz has nothing to do with the Nobel Prize. He is indeed an excellent poet, and a wise man, as we have already agreed. He deserved being awarded the Nobel Prize. It should be seen as a stamp confirming his quality.

KL: We know that there are controversial Nobel Prize decisions.

AZ: But then most of the 20th century greats never got the Nobel Prize and nobody worries about it. We read and admire Kafka or Rilke although they were never awarded the prize.

KL: During lectures on Polish poetry various names were mentioned. It is surprising that there did not appear a context that would require mentioning the generation of the fifty- and forty-year olds. It seems that after Skamander, Żagary, Avant-garde and New Wave groups, there is a gap in Polish poetry until the time of Świetlicki and Podsiadło. Incidentally, I think it may have something to do with the focus of Polish reviews. In your opinion, why does this generation escape the attention of professional critics, abroad as well as at home?

AZ: I do not really know what poets you are talking about, after all the New Wave group of authors are fifty years old. I think I do not know many Polish poets of the younger generation and I am in a sense excused, as I spent a long time abroad.

KL: Is the choice of Krakow as a site for The Meeting of Poets accidental? Is it simply because it is one of several beautiful Polish cities or is it a case of some personal genius loci?

AZ: This is not an accidental choice. The fact that Miłosz lives in Krakow is enough. For me this was one of the main reasons – to bring about a meeting between him and the young Americans. Szymborska also lives here but she avoids meetings.

KL: And if there is hope for a meeting it is here more than anywhere else, is it not?

AZ: There is always hope and there is always magic, and curiosity. I even advised my students to serenade under Szymborska’s window. She was not in Krakow at the time however. So obviously Krakow is not an accidental choice. Also, this is my city and after all, I can say this without false modesty, it was me who came up with the idea of those meetings. But these reasons are secondary. First of all Miłosz is here. And the fact that it is a beautiful city is also important because poetry feels better in a historic city than in less graceful places. Of course it does not mean that a great poetic genius cannot be born in one of those places. But when it comes to social existence of poetry, its presence in the urban landscape, Krakow is obviously number one and will remain such, at least for some time yet.

Conducted by Krystyna Lenkowska

Translated by Sergiusz Buschke

Krakow, 29 September 2003

Nowa Okolica Poetów, literary magazine, no 14 (2003 no 4) - "CERTAIN ENVY OF AMERICANS" - Submitted to print in “Periphery” magazine, US