folio : Three
from Viscera: Eight Voices from Poland
, edited by Mark
Tardi
from To outpace the pace of language
To me, language is a social construct inside of which the speaker of my poetry is bound to be trapped and to which they are frequently subjected. Linguistic conditioning, which entails the socialization of individuals to such “delusions” as religion, education, politics, or even literature, does not proceed without oppression. That’s why I emphasize various tensions resulting from these mechanisms and experienced by me daily whenever different messages intersect. I try to retrieve from the welter of cultural paradigms moments of surprising vitality in language and its creative energy accumulating via neologisms and paralogisms. As with the double negative, I want language to constantly escape the reality that it keeps naming and creating as well as its own protocols.
Laws’ laws roundabout
an injection of red body out of gases and plasm illuminated darkly
from
buildings blocks gates community femininity femaleness along across the streets
barging
with hips knees feet shod in the walking march
with
an aftermotion of arms hands spreading out transparency of events
breasts
beaten by the pressure of cramps rumbling under the skin
in
a nitrogen-oxygen mixture attached to backpacks bags a torso
crawling
with innumerous screams chanted from mouth to mouth
twisted
into a rope wound tightly around the security forces cordon
the
laws’ laws roundabout begins to vibrate with dance
blinding cries crashing into ears wadded with a white helmet
the
swarm uniformed illuminated with jackets’ reflective stripes
hurled
between vulgar letters wandering through banners
jumping
in the hands of cardboard slogans
the
roar of ostentatious negation carried ahead
to
the rhythm of propaganda repressions unleashed
reserves
of muscle gas expandable batons against protesters
justified
with a legal basis served from generous means
of
coercion: attacking incapacitating and other persuasion techniques
writhing
in a prevention mechanism the multi-arm row of shields
in
the oppressive pressure on persons inducing physical
pain
and psychic discomfort to cause their behavior
or
action against free will in line with a functionary’s orders
in
the caldron of passive resistance preventing performance of duties
follows
frustration of dichotomous relations
the
power of the powerless will debase desires no more
damage
on the balcony burns like a rainbow ensign
despite
stratification of layers minorities exclusion
from
all sides comes unorganized anger
apps
services portals communicators societies
chatting
in demonstration networks of diversity plenitude
as
a result of the tribunal’s order unpublished urgently
a
spark that irritated the nerve
of
the higher necessity state
in illegal gatherings of a rising
revolt
The
Sejm surrounded with railings
enclosed
blocked
down
the black umbrellas
in
streams went
the
rain
of
laughter and song
Translated from the Polish by Małgorzata Myk
from Viscera: Eight Voices from Poland,
edited by Mark Tardi
Litmus Press,
2024 : reprinted with permission,
Maria
Cyranowicz
(b. 1974)––a poet, literary critic and performer. She is the author of the
poetry collections den.presja (2009), psychodelicje (2006), piąty element to fiksja (2004), i
magii nacja (2001), and neutralizacje (1997). She is the co-editor
of the first Polish anthology of women’s poetry, Solistki (2009), Gada !Zabić?
Pa)n(tologia neolingwizmu (2005), and the magazines Meble and Wakat/Notoria.
Since 2004, she has been publishing books with her own typographic design in
collaboration with the artist Marek Sobczyk, gesturing to the early
20th-century avant-garde, concrete poetry, and contemporary art. She presented
her work at the „Manifestacje Poetyckie” festival and the Ujazdowski Castle
Center for Contemporary Art in Warsaw. In 2020 she was featured in Zbigniew
Libera’s large-scale staged photograph “Maria de Cyrano” and in Ola
Wasilewska’s
animated video for her own poem “Sztama,” presented at the international
exhibition “Milk me Sugar” in Galeria Arsenał
in Białystok.
Her most recent book is machinacje (2024).
MAŁGORZATA
MYK (b. 1975) is the author of the monograph Upping the Ante of the Real:
Speculative Poetics of Leslie Scalapino (2019) and co-editor of the
Literary and Visual Extremities special issue of the journal Text Matters (2023). Her awards include a Senior Fulbright Award
(2024–25) at the University of Utah and a Kosciuszko Foundation Fellowship
(2017) at UCSD. Her translations into Polish include the writing of Leslie
Scalapino, Divya Victor, and E. Tracy Grinnell, whose poetry was in the
anthology Variants of Catching Breath: Five American Voices, edited by
Mark Tardi (2022). Pogoda, her translation of Lisa Robertson’s The Weather (Lokator) appeared in 2024. A
volume of selected poetry by Kevin Davies in her translation is forthcoming
from Disastra Publishing. Her translations of Maria Cyranowicz’s poems have appeared in Modern Poetry in Translation, periodicities, AzonaL,
ANMLY and the chapbook A
Species of Least Concern (Toad Press/Veliz Books, 2024). She is on
faculty at the University of Łódz.