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On-line magazines and news sites

The July-August issue of the Polish language magazine Polski Partner is available for free, on-line. Click on the “Free Online” button in the upper right hand corner of their website. Archive issues are also available. The magazine covers news from Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York, and features articles on everything from fitness to history to cooking. Enjoy!

Cogo News is a new online news and commentary service covering Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) in the English language. Cogo provides short, succinct articles reviewing the key editorial, commentary and opinion pieces in major regional news outlets. Beyond news coverage, Cogo encourages dialogue and creative writing in and about CEE. Cogo encourages contributions of articles, analyses, short stories, photos, poems, comments, and essays.

See the Cogo article Fry reads Miłosz

Stephen Fry narrates a free new audiobook celebrating the extraordinary work of the legendary Polish poet Czesław Miłosz. Available with the Times Literary Supplement on 12th August 2011, and free streaming available online here and here.

Celebrating the life and works of one of Poland’s foremost literary icons, Stephen Fry narrates a new audiobook of selected poems by Miłosz, marking the centenary of his birth.

Stephen Fry commented on his involvement in the project: “It gave me enormous pleasure to read these poems, which I count as amongst the best written in any language since the war. It would give me even more pleasure if I thought that this recording might bring Miłosz and his dazzling mixture of honesty, insight and pure poetic instinct to a wider, English-speaking readership…”

Poetry, Poland - Polish - Polonia, , , , , , , , ,

Around the Polish-American writing community

The activity at the Polish American Writers & Editors Facebook page has been wonderful. There are links to book and poetry reviews and blogs, opportunities for writers, excellent analysis and recommendations. I highly recommend that anyone who writes or loves to read, or who has an interest in writing become a member of this group.

Some recent/not-so-recent material:

Andy Golebiowski notes Rita Cosby’s book about her father’s participation in the Polish Underground during WWII is now in paperback and close to becoming a bestseller.

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Linda Ciulik Wisniewski recommends Off Kilter: A Woman’s Journey to Peace With Scoliosis, Her Mother, and Her Polish Heritage by Linda C. Wisniewski.

Even before she was diagnosed with scoliosis at thirteen, Linda C. Wisniewski felt off kilter. Born to an emotionally abusive father and long-suffering mother in the Polish Catholic community of upstate New York, Linda twisted herself into someone always trying to please. Balance would elude her until she learned to stretch her Self as well as her spine. Only by accepting her physical deformity, her emotionally unavailable mother, and her heritage would she finally find a life that fit.

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Krysia Styrna points to Polish Writing which features Polish literature in translation. Recently linked translations include Kordian by Juliusz Słowacki as translated by Gerard T. Kapolka and available on-line through Scribd, and Primeval and Other Times by Olga Tokarczuk as translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones.

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Dr. John Guzlowski discusses the New England Review’s article by Ellen Hinsey on the plane crash that killed President Lech Kaczynski and others last year in the Katyn Forest. The article talks extensively and sympathetically about the effect of the crash on Poland. See Hinsey – Death in the Forest.

He notes Polish American writer Danusha Goska is travelling in Poland and posting Facebook and blog updates about her travels at Bieganski the Blog.

Also noted, Daiva Markelis powerful book White Field, Black Sheep: A Lithuanian-American Life published by the Univ of Chicago Press about growing up Lithuanian-American. Her experiences in many ways parallel those of people who grew up Polish-American and the children of DPs. Read her recent interview at The Smoking Poet, Talking to Daiva Markelis

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Danuta Hinc provides a preview of her newest work, a short story entitled In the Forest of Angels. The story is inspired by real events and all the characters in the story are based on real people — her grandparents, mother, and herself.

Pol-Am writer Oriana Ivy continues her writing (absolutely fantastic and a regular read — an inspired and inquisitive poet) with Persephone and Aphrodite. There are many levels, but in short, the process of leaving Poland and coming to America, trauma, finding, and rebirth. She begins with her poem Eurydice In Milwaukee and concludes with Persephone’s Kitchen.

This poem is not about my loss of Warsaw so much as about my loss of America. I mean the idealized, imaginary America in my mind after I arrived in real America. I was seventeen. That combination – loss of both Poland and America – was to be the first in the series of my “Persephone experiences.” (Eurydice can be seen as a version of Persephone.)

In my early teens, in Warsaw, I fell in love with Greek mythology. I thought it was possible to choose your own special goddess. A fierce young intellectual, I longed for Athena at my side – Athena the super-intelligent, with her brilliant strategies and unfailing guidance and protection of heroes. Now and then I also longed for Aphrodite to lend me her charms and help me in matters of love, but with the understanding that this was a secondary goddess. As my personal goddess, I chose Athena.

Soon enough I learned that you do not choose your god or goddess. Life (or call it fate, or circumstances), in combination with your deep self, chooses for you. Past the age of seventeen and a half, the only goddess I identified with was Persephone…

There is tons more of course… all carrying you into a world of writing set apart, yet reflecting who we are in all its rootedness, shadows, and splendor.

Events, Poetry, Poland - Polish - Polonia, , , ,

Remembering D-Day

From Dr. John Guzlowski remembering the anniversary of the Allied invasion of Europe: D-Day Remembrance

Today, June 6, is the anniversary of the invasion of Europe, and by chance I was in a high school about to begin a presentation about my parents and their experiences in the Nazi concentration camps when an announcement came on asking the students in the school to remember the anniversary of D-Day.

As the speaker talked about what D-Day was, I thought about all that day meant to me, my parents’ long years as Polish forced laborers in Nazi Germany, the refugee camps after the war, the family killed and left behind, our coming to the US as DPs.

When the announcement ended, I began my presentation with a poem about my father’s liberation from the camps. Here’s the poem:

In the Spring the War Ended

For a long time the war was not in the camps.
My father worked in the fields and listened
to the wind moving the grain, or a guard
shouting a command far off, or a man dying…

Current Events, Perspective, PNCC, Poetry,

Tornado in poetry

From Dr. John Z. Guzlowski:

I’ve been watching the Joplin news and posted a poem that I wrote years ago about a tornado that hit a small central Illinois town we were living in.

I’m posting as an additional reflection on the recent tornado in nearby Springfield, Massachusetts which touched down about one mikle away from St. Joseph’s PNC Parish.

Here are the first two stanzas of this powerful poem. As a parent, it tore through me.

My Daughter Lillian is Outside Playing

In the quiet space of the dining room
My wife and I lay out the place settings

The forks beside the Wedgwood plates
The spoons and knives in their places…

Art, Poetry, , , , ,

Poetry Updates

There’s been a ton of activity at the Polish American Writers & Editors group on Facebook. Some highlights:

Danuta Hinc in Plowing the Polish-English fallow ground

One might say that living a bilingual life offers enriched experience, but I say it also brings confusion and struggle during the first years of learning, especially when the second language enters someone’s life in the second or third decade. I am not sure if there is a moment when two different languages can merge and become “one” or if they always exist as separate platforms of experience and expression.

Translating my novel, Zabić Innego, originally written in Polish, into To Kill the Other, taught me the value of time and persistent repetition, something that’s hard to admit and even harder to accept in today’s fast-paced world.

For those of us who are born into single-language families — meaning the mother and the father speak the same language — the world becomes entrenched in the sound of the language in a singular if not monotonous way. In this case language becomes unequivocal with objects, actions, feelings, and emotions. I can’t decide if the context of life imposes itself on language or if the language underlines the context. Perhaps the two options are intertwined and impossible to separate.

…

The interesting question revolves around the second language. What happens when we learn another language, the so-called “second language,” later in our lives?

My experience tells me that the second language becomes an exotic realm of existence: appealing, promising, and — against all hope — unattainable…

Florence Waszkelewicz Clowes of the Polish American Journal has invited authors to contact her if they have interest in a review by the Journal.

oriana-poetry reflects on the poetry, theology, and alcoholism of Czesław Miłosz in Milosz At The Gates Of Heaven. A excellent reflection contracting the faith of Agape with the faith of predestination and damnation.

Sober Reader, you yawn: yet another famous poet turns out to have been an alcoholic. “Heaven is the third vodka” – should we even bother discussing what for non-alcoholics is sheer nonsense? And is it really true that great writers need a “charismatic flaw,” as the literary critic Leslie Fiedler claimed, that flaw generally being dependence on alcohol?

Milosz writes: “My real drinking began in earnest in occupied Warsaw with my future wife Janka and Jerzy Andrzejewski (author of Ashes and Diamond) . . . I drank a lot, but always took care to separate time for work from time for letting go . . . Alas, too many generations of my ancestors drank for me to have been free from the urge for the bottle.” (Milosz’s ABC, p. 18)

…I am interested in the acutely bitter tone of this unique poem. Is this Job speaking, subtly accusing the Old One (as Einstein liked to refer to God)? Let’s not forget that Milosz is a metaphysical poet, and can provide us with a certain metaphysical shiver when we consider the kind of cruel deterministic theology that is still very powerful, while progressive Christian theologies remain anemic.

“An Alcoholic Enters the Gates of Heaven” is especially interesting in the light of the recent prediction by a fundamentalist preacher, Harold Camping (a happy camper, since he regards himself as one of those predestined to taste paradise) that the Last Judgment would take place Saturday May 21st at 6 PM (Eastern Standard Time, I think). I have also just read an interesting summary of crucifixion-centered theologies versus progressive theologies. The preacher who was predicting the end of the world belongs to the first tradition, of Christ seen both as a sacrificial victim, a “sin sacrifice,” and – this seems an egregiously un-Christian concept – as the ultimate judge who will accept the chosen few and hurl billions of souls into eternal torment.

Progressive theologies, on the other hand, are fascinated by early Christianity that emphasized agape (loving kindness; a community of affection) and paradise rather than hell. The basic tenet of progressive theologies is that the Second Coming is the birth of Christ Consciousness within us and among us, in the global community. We are here to build the kingdom of God on earth. God intends all souls to be saved. Paradise is here and now.

Alas, progressive theologians do not seem to have the PR resources commanded by the “blood of the Lamb/Armageddon” theologies. The only time there seemed to be true hope for progressive theologies was when Rabbi Kushner’s famous book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People, became a best-seller. Kushner posited a deity with limited powers, one who neither causes nor prevents cancer, heart attacks, tsunamis, and other disasters. God does not decide which child will get leukemia, or who will grow up to be an alcoholic. Some evil is the work of natural laws (these days, an earthquake is rarely called an “act of God”); other kinds of evil are the work of man. Afterwards, everything depends on our response: do we curse and despair and can’t move on, or do we summon the strength to transcend the tragedy? Faith is one of the resources that can increase people’s strength to endure and recover. (Twelve-step programs also come to mind.)…

John Guzlowski reads Beets, about his mother’s experience in the Nazi slave labor camps in Germany during WWII. The poem is taken from his book Lightning and Ashes.

…and from yours truly, a friend I assisted in assembling Poetry and Sundry, a book of poems on a myriad of subjects, particularly interpersonal relationships, sex, passion, regret, faith, commitment, love, places, and Polish related subjects:

An excerpt from the poem Narrative:

Constructed sequence events.
Latin: narrare, “to recount.”
Latin: gnarus, “knowing.”
Recounting what we know.
But for us, history unwritten.
No available narrative.
Certainly members of narratives,
Other definitions,
Background stories.
Ours unwritten.
So we have begun, to inscribe.

And the poem Hallelujah

Leonard Cohen.
Kohanim.
You know God – serving Him as priest.
Touching all the essentials
in poetry and song —
love, longing, war, eroticism, spirituality.
Things at our core
that transcend.
Things that quake us.

Events, Poetry, , , ,

A Weekend with The Sun in Massachusetts

Into the Fire: The Sun Celebrates Personal Writing: Join Sun authors Michelle Cacho-Negrete, Doug Crandell, Gillian Kendall, and Sparrow, along with editor and publisher Sy Safransky, for a lively weekend of writing, reflection, and inspiration, June 3–5, 2011. The gathering will be held at Rowe, a retreat center situated on fifty acres of lush woodland in the Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts.

A large enrollment is expected, and spaces are limited. You may register by contacting Rowe at (413) 339-4954, or online.

Christian Witness, PNCC, Poetry, , , , , ,

A year of remembrance for two Polish greats

2010 marked the Year of Frederick Chopin. The year 2010 was the 200th anniversary of the birth of this eminent figure. There were great celebrations and concerts as well as piano competitions throughout the world and in particular in Poland in his honor.

We also celebrated another important figure in the history of arts, literature, and particularly poetry in Poland, Maria Konopnicka. 2010 marked the 100th anniversary of her passing. Maria Konopnicka is beloved of the Polish National Catholic Church in particular. Bishop Hodur established societies in her honor, as well in honor of Juliusz Słowacki, so as to promote literature and arts among Polish immigrants to the United States.

The following article appeared in the September 21, 2010 edition of God’s Field, written by the Very Rev. Frederyk Banas: Maria Konopnicka, May 23, 1842 – October 8, 1910, Poland’s Great Poetess

October 8, 2010 marks the 100th anniversary of the death of Poland’s great poetess, Maria Konopnicka. It was at the time of her death in 1910 that our beloved Organizer, the late Prime Bishop Franciszek Hodur was in Poland and learned of the death of this great woman after whom he had already organized societies in his church in the United States. The Roman Church refused her burial considering her an enemy and heretic because she had the courage to speak and write of the evils in the Church of Rome and its exploitation of the poor.

The family of the late poetess learned of the presence of Prime Bishop Hodur in Poland and requested that he conduct the funeral service. However, after hearing of this, the Roman hierarchy had changed its mind and decided to conduct the funeral service for her. Bishop Hodur presented his message and placed a large wreath with the inscription: “To Poland’s Great Poetess from the Polish National Catholic Church in the United States.”

The late Prime Bishop Francis Hodur in his introductory comments to the first volume of poetry published by the United Ladies’ Maria Konopnicka Societies in Scranton, PA, in 1946 said:

“Maria Konopnicka is not only the greatest poetess of the Polish people, but we can say without exaggeration, that she is the greatest poet of the human race. Before her, three women have gained fame as poets, namely: Deborah, living in the 11th century before Christ, living in that era which was known as the period of Judges; Sapphonia, living near the end of the 7th century on the island of Lesbos in Greece, and Ada Negri, living at the end of the 19th century in Italy and a contemporary of Maria Konopnicka.

History tells us that Deborah was a prophetess a judge and a poet. She wrote patriotic songs calling the Jewish people to fight for their freedom and liberty; these songs were sung either by her when she led the soldiers into battle, or by others designated by her.

Sapphonia was a poet of nature. She wrote beautiful poems about the mountains, the forests, the valleys and about all of those beautiful things which spoke to the human heart and soul and which were found on the island of Lesbos. She was persecuted to such an extent that she had to leave and return to southern Italy in order to save her life. After a few years, guided by the love of her home country, she returned to Lesbos and lived out her remaining years.

Ada Negri is truly the daughter of the Italian people. She was born into the family of a poor Italian workman. In spite of extraordinary material difficulties, she secured an adequate education and became a school teacher. She began to write and speak of the poverty of the Italian people. She spoke of the wrongs suffered by the Italian peasant and workman, and as a result of this, she lost her job as a school teacher and was persecuted. After the peasants and workmen received some recognition in the nation, she became very popular and was respected and even practically glorified by her people.

Maria Konopnicka united in her person the talents of the three mentioned immortal names. She was the poetess of her people. She did not lead her people into battle in the common meaning of the term as did Deborah, but she carried on the spiritual battle, calling for more education, equality of all people who constitute the nation, and prophesied victory for the Polish people when justice among them would be satisfied. She loved the natural beauty of the Polish landscape, the glorious majesty of the Tatra Mountains, the fields, streams, the gardens and the villages and all of those things which would foster love for the Fatherland.

She was disillusioned and disgusted with a visit to the Church of St. Joachim in Rome in which were placed all the national standards of all nations of the world, but among which the standard of Poland was not evident. She wrote of this bitterly saying, “Upon these marble walls where even the schismatic Lutheran has his place, this holy martyr for the Christian cause, this sacred Poland has been erased from among the nations of the earth as though anathemized.From “Do braci zmartwychwstańców.”” In a poem concerning the Church of Rome she speaks thusly:

O Rome! . . . How you have disappointed
     me, Rome!
You have not spread your wings over
     the brood as the hen does
When in Jerusalem the hawks hovered
     over the chicks,
No, you have hid in the smoke of your
     thuribles,
And with the hawks you have made
     alliance.
In the brightness of the feathers of
     peacocks you
Permit yourself to be carried, basking in
     the glory
Which you have torn out of the garment
     of Christ!

Maria Konopnicka struggled for social justice; she was the mediatrix of her people. She wrote of the oppressed, of the disinherited, the orphan and the poverty of her fellowman. The words which she uttered in receiving the gift of a home and a little parcel of land in Zamowiec, a gift of the Polish people in appreciation for her labor, sufferings and work on their behalf, could be interpreted as her will and testament: “On this occasion,” she said, “what do we need? … Love for the earth. Confessors for an ideal, education for the people, respect for work, soldiers for an idea, triumph for truth, unity and equality for all!”

Her principles and ideals were so closely related to those of our beloved Organizer, the late Prime Bishop Francis Hodur. Both lived and struggled for freedom, truth, equality, justice, education, brotherhood and enlightenment; Both were warriors for great causes and issues! People of this caliber are not born daily but are providential! Let us cherish their work and continue on the mission they have begun for causes so noble and holy which will make our Country and our Church great, free, and unique!

Art, Poetry, Poland - Polish - Polonia, , , ,

Writing of interest

Articles on Polish and Polish-American history by Martin S. Nowak from the Polish Culture Newsletter, No. 121:

Poles Developed Early Television:

It has recently become fashionable to credit the invention of television to the American Philo T. Farnsworth. But the truth is, modern television was not so much a single invention by a single person, but a long process of interdependent discoveries. Many scientists from different countries and backgrounds contributed to its development. Among them were Poles…

John Quincy Adams, future US President, visiting Silesia:

In the year 1800, John Quincy Adams, the U.S. Minister to Prussia, undertook a two month tour of Silesia, then part of Prussia. He detailed his experiences in a series of letters to his brother. It was a thoroughly German area in that time (Western Silesia) that Adams visited, yet it is interesting to note the observations of a distinguished American, later President of the United States, of this region. Silesia, during its complicated history, was in centuries past a part of Poland and is currently a part of that nation, comprising its southwestern region.

Starting by horse-drawn coach from his residence in Berlin, Adams’ first stop in what is now Polish territory was at Gruenberg, today the city of Zielona Gora. Noting its cloth mills and vineyards, Adams and his party, which included his wife and two servants, continued on their carriage ride deeper to Silesia. Their first stop in the province was at Bunzlau. There, Adams observed the main industry of the town. Even today it is famous, for the Polish name of this place is Boleslawiec, home of the world renowned Boleslawiec pottery…

Littlepage: American Citizen, Polish Statesman:

Lewis Littlepage was a young American who was a figure in the final years of the Kingdom of Poland. He was born in Virginia in 1762 into a well-connected family and at seventeen was sent to Madrid to live in the household of John Jay, U.S. Minister to Spain. There, he furthered his education in politics and foreign diplomacy in a hands-on manner.

In 1781 he joined the Spanish army and served with distinction against the British in Gibraltar. Two years later the French General Lafayette accompanied him to Paris, and Littlepage was introduced to the French royal court where he made a favorable impression.

In 1784, Littlepage traveled across Europe with a French prince who was married to a Polish woman. In Poland, he became acquainted with the leading social and political families and was personally introduced to King Stanisław August Poniatowski. Littlepage made an immediate impression upon the king, for he was charming, witty and intelligent bordering on genius. They shared an interest in books and liberal ideas. King Stanisław admired all things American, and Littlepage’s friendship with Lafayette and knowledge of France and Spain appealed to him. The king offered Littlepage a position in his court…

Poetry and Memory from Dr. John Guzlowski:

The website Editions Bibliotekos features a short personal essay Dr. Guzlowski wrote about his changing attitudes toward his parents and their experiences as Polish slave laborers in Nazi Germany in Truth Teller – John Guzlowski.

For the last thirty years, I’ve been writing about my parents and their experiences during World War II. I’ve written about how my dad spent four years in Buchenwald, a concentration camp in Germany, and how my mother survived the day the Nazis raped and killed her mother and her sister but was taken to a slave labor camp in Germany. I’ve written about this and so many other things that happened to my mother and father first in Poland when the Nazis invaded, then in Germany where my parents were imprisoned, and finally in America after the war.

But growing up, I never thought I would…

…and a piece about the importance of patience in writing in Writing is an Incremental Art:

When you’re a writer, there are bad days and good days. Some days, you sit and write, and the words feel like they’re in someone else’s head; and some days, you write and the writing is fast and right, and you think that each word is a gift from some muse that really and completely loves and cares for you and what you have to say.

That’s the way it is for all of us, I think, but one of the things that I’ve come to feel about writing on bad days as well as good ones is that the progress, the movement forward, the work, is…

Art, Events, Media, Poetry, Poland - Polish - Polonia, Xpost to PGF, , , , , , , , ,

Catching up with the Cosmopolitan Review

The Cosmopolitan Review is published by the alumni of Poland in the Rockies, a biennial symposium in Polish studies held at Canmore, Alberta, Canada. Here is a video from last summer’s sessions:

Each Review is a wealth of information on everything from books to politics, history to poetry. The following are links to articles from the Summer 2010 and Fall 2010 editions I thought you might find interesting and enlightening:

Summer 2010, Vol. 2, No. 2

Poland

… And beyond

Art

Essays

Books & Docs

Poetry

From the Past Into the Present

Fall 2010 Vol. 2, No. 3

Poles & Poland

… And beyond

Books, language, poetry…

Poetry, , , ,

Registration for the 2010-11 Poetry Out Loud program now open

Poetry Out Loud is a national program through the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) that encourages high school students to learn about great poetry as they memorize and perform notable poems in a series of competitions that begin in the classroom and will culminate with national championships in Washington, D.C. in April.

Visit the NYSAAE website for complete details on how to bring this program to your school. The deadline to register schools to participate is November 5, 2010.

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