Matching Różewicz

In one of his famous poems Tadeusz Różewicz writes about his “homework” — it is the “creation of poetry after Auschwitz.” The poem dates from the 1970s and it is deeply ironic, very much like most of Różewicz’s greatest poems. And just like many other of his monumental statements, the “creation of poetry after Auschwitz” keeps coming up in simpleminded interpretations as a handy emblem of all of Rożewicz’s oeuvre. Apparently, that’s the way it’s going to be. But Różewicz’s true greatness is far from handy — it is ambiguous, aporetic, full of doubt, even doubtful.

Tadeusz Różewicz left a universal and unmistakably contemporary body of work. In it, he reports on the crisis of the Western world (an endless crisis, it seems), and he keeps examining the poem as a means of expression, a communication tool, a work of art, a task and challenge. Adhering to the dysfunctional character of our civilization, Różewicz reached further and deeper, beyond the divisions established by the Cold War’s Iron Curtain separating West from East. In his care for poetry’s status — its potentials and limitations — Różewicz achieved so much — or only so much? — that, when writing poems after Różewicz, one has no other option but to go on and try to match his work. And, I dare say, this may apply not only to Polish poets.

Translated by Kacper Bartczak