Adam Zagajewski > Quotes

“Read for yourselves, read for the sake of your inspiration, for the sweet turmoil in your lovely head. But also read against yourselves, read for questioning and impotence, for despair and erudition, read the dry sardonic remarks of cynical philosophers like Cioran or even Carl Schmitt, read newspapers, read those who despise, dismiss or simply ignore poetry and try to understand why they do it. Read your enemies, read those who reinforce your sense of what's evolving in poetry, and also read those whose darkness or malice or madness or greatness you can't understand because only in this way will you grow, outlive yourself, and become what you are.”
― Adam Zagajewski, A Defense of Ardor: Essays

“I drink from a small spring,
my thirst exceeds the ocean.”
― Adam Zagajewski, Without End: New and Selected Poems

“Try to praise the mutilated world.
Remember June’s long days,
and wild strawberries, drops of wine, the dew.
The nettles that methodically overgrow
the abandoned homesteads of exiles.
You must praise the mutilated world.
You watched the stylish yachts and ships;
one of them had a long trip ahead of it,
while salty oblivion awaited others.
You’ve seen the refugees heading nowhere,
You’ve heard the executioners sing joyfully.
You should praise the mutilated world.
Remember the moments when we were together
in a white room and the curtain fluttered.
Return in thought to the concert where music flared.
You gathered acorns in the park in autumn
and leaves eddied over the earth's scars.
Praise the mutilated world
and the gray feathers a thrush lost,
and the gentle light that strays and vanishes
and returns.”
― Adam Zagajewski

“In summer the empire of insects spreads.”
― Adam Zagajewski

“But I was only a chaotic walker, nobody could stop me; even a totalitarian state was not able to control my daydreams, my poetic fascinations, the pattern of my walking.”
― Adam Zagajewski

“Doubt is more intelligent than poetry, insofar as it tells malicious tales about the world, things we’ve long known but struggled to hide from ourselves. But poetry surpasses doubt, pointing to what we cannot know. Doubt is narcissistic; we look at everything critically, including ourselves, and perhaps that comforts us. Poetry, on the other hand, trusts the world, and rips us from the deep-sea diving suits of our “I”; it believes in the possibility of beauty and its tragedy. Poetry’s argument with doubt has nothing in common with the facile quarrel of optimism and pessimism. The twentieth century’s great drama means that we now deal with two kinds of intellect: the resigned and the seeking, the questing. Doubt is poetry for the resigned. Whereas poetry is searching, endless wandering. Doubt is a tunnel, poetry is a spiral. Doubt prefers to shut, while poetry opens. Poetry laughs and cries, doubt ironizes. Doubt is death’s plenipotentiary, its longest and wittiest shadow; poetry runs toward an unknown goal. Why does one choose poetry while another chooses doubt? We don’t know and we’ll never find out. We don’t know why one is Cioran and the other is Milosz.”
― Adam Zagajewski, A Defense of Ardor: Essays

“A little rain, a little blood. Black fingernails in August; and going berserk, going bananas. As if entrapped in a tropical heatwave, with dozens of whirlwinds swirling in one’s mind, one thinks of a way out, or a way in: out of the scorching bosom of a volcano, and in – into the centre of a raging hurricane. And tracing the labyrinthine ways of your mind, the haphazard vagaries of your thoughts at ease, the odds and ends of your mental surplus you carelessly throw at the world, one wants to be at a loss, in a maze; amazed, and amazingly unabashed.”
― Adam Zagajewski

“Epithalamium

Without silence there would be no music.
Life paired is doubtless more difficult
than solitary existence -
just as a boat on the open sea
with outstretched sails is trickier to steer
than the same boat drowsing at a dock, but schooners
after all are meant for wind and motion,
not idleness and impassive quiet.

A conversation continued through the years includes
hours of anxiety, anger, even hatred,
but also compassion, deep feeling.
Only in marriage do love and time,
eternal enemies, join forces.
Only love and time, when reconciled,
permit us to see other beings
in their enigmatic, complex essence,
unfolding slowly and certainly, like a new settlement
in a valley, or among green hills.

In begins from one day only, from joy
and pledges, from the holy day of meeting,
which is like a moist grain;
then come the years of trial and labor,
sometimes despair, fierce revelation,
happiness and finally a great tree
with rich greenery grows over us,
casting its vast shadow. Cares vanish in it.”
― Adam Zagajewski

“But where do we find what's lasting? Where do the deathless things hide?”
― Adam Zagajewski, A Defense of Ardor: Essays

“О, кажи ми как да се излекувам от иронията, от погледа,
който вижда, но не прониква; кажи ми как да се излекувам от мълчанието.”
― Адам Загаевски

“IMPOSSIBLE FRIENDSHIPS For example, with someone who no longer is, who exists only in yellowed letters. Or long walks beside a stream, whose depths hold hidden porcelain cups—and the talks about philosophy with a timid student or the postman. A passerby with proud eyes whom you’ll never know. Friendship with this world, ever more perfect (if not for the salty smell of blood). The old man sipping coffee in St.-Lazare, who reminds you of someone. Faces flashing by in local trains— the happy faces of travelers headed perhaps for a splendid ball, or a beheading. And friendship with yourself —since after all you don’t know who you are.”
― Adam Zagajewski, Eternal Enemies: Poems

“In my defense I have
only silence, dew on the grass, a nightingale
among the branches. You forgive it,
its long tenure in the leaves of one aspen
after another, drops of eternity, grams
of amazement, and the sleepy complaints of the poor poets”
― Adam Zagajewski, Without End: New and Selected Poems

“Time takes life away and gives us memory...”
― Adam Zagajewski, Mysticism for Beginners: Poems

“Only in marriage do love and time,
eternal enemies, join forces.”
― Adam Zagajewski, Eternal Enemies: Poems

“Music heard with you
at home or in the car
or even while strolling
didn’t always sound as pristine
as piano tuners might wish—
it was sometimes mixed with voices
full of fear and pain,
and then that music
was more than music,
it was our living
and our dying.”
― Adam Zagajewski

“Ходех на дълги разходки,
само за едно зажаднял:
за светкавица,
за промяна,
за тебе.”
― Adam Zagajewski, Unseen Hand: Poems

“I could write a guidebook about this city, this fallen city. Street by street, house by house, church by church. What happened in this building, who was betrayed, and by whom, in this apartment, who waited for whom on this street corner. And why the person never came.”
― Adam Zagajewski, Another Beauty

“USPAVANKA

Nećeš zaspati danas. Toliko svetlosti u prozoru.
Veštačke vatre rastu nad gradom.
Nećeš zaspati, previše toga se dogodilo.
Nad tobom bdiju knjige postrojene u redove.
Dugo ćeš razmišljati o onome što se zbilo
i nije se zbilo. Nećeš zaspati danas.
Pobuniće se tvoji crveni kapci, oči će ti biti crvene i natečene,
a srce naduveno od uspomena.
Nećeš zaspati. Otvoriće se enciklopedija
i iz nje izaći drevni pesnici, brižno obučeni,
zaštićeni od hladnoće. Kao padobran
Otvoriće se sećanje, iznenada zašištaće vazduh.
Sećanje će se otvoriti i uopšte nećeš zaspati,
ljuljaćeš se između oblaka,
pokretan i jasan cilj, u svetlosti vatrometa.
Više nikada nećeš zaspati, premnogo ti je
ispričano, previše se zbilo.
Svaka kap krvi mogla bi da
napiše svoju skerletnu Ilijadu.
Svako svitanje moglo bi da bude autor
mračnih uspomena. Nećeš zaspati
ispod debelog jorgana krovova, tavana i dimnjaka
koji bacaju uvis pregršt pepela. Bele noći tiho plove nebom
i šušte vesla, svilene čarape.
Izaći ćeš u park i granje će te
blagonaklono udarati po ramenima,
krizmajući te još jednom, kao da nisu sigurne
u tvoju vernost. Nećeš zaspati.
Trčaćeš kroz pusti park, postaćeš
senka i susretaćeš druge senke. Razmišljaćeš
o nekom koga više nema i o nekom
ko živi tako intenzivno da se život na obalama
pretvara u ljubav. Sve je više svetlosti
u sobi. Danas nećeš zaspati.”
― Adam Zagajewski, Canvas: Poems

“I can’t write Krakow’s history, even though its people and ideas, trees and walls, cowardice and courage, freedom and rain all involve me. Ideas as well, since they cling to our skin and change us imperceptibly. The Zeitgeist chisels our thoughts and mocks our dreams. I’m intrigued by all kinds of walls; the space we inhabit isn’t neutral, it shapes our existence. Landscapes enter our innermost being, they leave traces not just on our retinas but on the deepest strata of our personalities. Those moments when the sky’s blue-gray suddenly stands revealed after a downpour stay with us, as do moments of quiet snowfall. And ideas may even join forces with the snow, through our senses and our body. They cling to the walls of houses. And later the houses and bodies, the senses and ideas all vanish. But I can’t write Krakow’s history, I can only try to reclaim a few moments, a few places and events; a few people I liked and admired, and a few that I despised.”
― Adam Zagajewski, Another Beauty

“Remember the moments when we were together
in a white room and the curtain fluttered.
Return in thought to the concert where music flared.
You gathered acorns in the park in autumn
and leaves eddied over the earth’s scars.
Praise the mutilated world
and the gray feather a thrush lost,
and the gentle light that strays and vanishes
and returns.

—Adam Zagajewski, from “Try to Praise the Mutilated World,” Without End: New and Selected Poems. (Straus & Giroux, LLC, 2002)”
― Adam Zagajewski, Without End: New and Selected Poems

“Here are people who refused to cheat, who eagerly sought out the truth and shrank from neither poetry nor terror, the two poles of our globe - since poetry does exist in the world, in certain events, at rare moments. And there’s also no shortage of terror.”
― Adam Zagajewski, Another Beauty

“POSMATRAM FOTOGRAFIJU

Posmatram fotografiju grada u kome sam se rodio,
njegove bujne bašte i krivudave ulice, brda,
katoličke krovove i kupole pravoslavnih crkava
u kojima nedeljom pevaju snažni basovi,
od kojih se okolno drveće povija kao da divlja uragan;
dugo posmatram tu fotografiju i ne mogu da odvojim
pogled sa nje,
odjednom počinjem da zamišljam da svi oni i dalje tu žive,
kao da se ništa nije dogodilo, da neprestano trče na predavanja,
čekaju voz, voze se plavim tramvajem,
uznemireno gledaju u kalendar, staju na vagu,
slušaju Verdijeve arije i omiljene operete,
čitaju novine koje su još bele,
žive u žurbi, u strahu, neprekidno kasneći,
malčice su besmrtni, ali to ne znaju,
neko od njih neuredno plaća kiriju, neko se boji sušice,
neko ne može da završi raspravu o Kantovoj filozofiji,
ni da shvati šta su stvari same po sebi,
moja baka ponovo ide u Bžuhovice noseći
tortu na ravnim ramenima koja se ne opuštaju,
u apoteci stidljivi mladić traži lek protiv stidljivosti,
devojka posmatra svoje male grudi u ogledalu,
moj rođak izlazi u park odmah posle kupanja
ne sluteći da će uskoro dobiti zapaljenje pluća,
ponekad puca oduševljenje, zimi žute lampe
stvaraju krug bliskosti, u julu muve bučno svetkuju
veliku svetlost leta i pevuše mračne himne,
događaju se pogromi, ustanci, deportacije,
okrutni Vermaht u elegantnim uniformama,
nailazi podli NKVD, crvene petokrake
obećavaju prijateljstvo, mada su znak izdaje,
ali oni to ne vide, takoreći to ne vide,
imaju toliko stvari da obave, treba
nabaviti ugalj za zimu, naći dobrog lekara,
rastu gomile pisama bez odgovora, bledi mrko mastilo,
u sobi svira radio, najnovije parče nameštaja koje će
emitovati muziku i loše vesti, ali oni su
umorni od običnog života i običnog umiranja,
nemaju ni za šta vremena, izvinjavaju se zbog toga,
pišu dugačka pisma i lakonske razglednice,
stalno kasne, beznadno kasne,
kao i mi, baš kao i mi, kao i ja.”
― Adam Zagajewski, Unseen Hand: Poems

“Con qué tranquilidad avanzamos
a través de días y meses,
y cantamos en voz baja
una negra canción de cuna,
cuán fácil los lobos secuestran
a nuestros hermanos
con qué levedad
respira la muerte”
― Adam Zagajewski, Deseo

“ZVONA

Sklonićemo se u zvona, u raznjihana
zvona, u huku, u vazduh, u srce zvonjave.
Sklonićemo se u zvona i zaploviti
iznad zemlje u teškim vagonima. Iznad zemlje,
iznad polja, tamo gde su livade koje nose
mladi jasenovi i seoske crkve, u zaklonu
jutarnjih magli i šuma koje trče kao stada
antilopa; tamo gde potoci tiho pokreću
vodenice. Iznad zemlje, iznad livada,
iznad bele rade, iznad klupe, na kojoj je
ljubav urezala nesavršen znak, iznad
vrbe poslušne hladnom vetru,
iznad škole u kojoj uveče latinske
reči razgovaraju jedne s drugim; iznad dubokog
ribnjaka, iznad Morskog Oka, iznad plača
i iznad žalosti, iznad lornjona koji se presavija
na suncu, iznad kalendara
ispunjenih vremenom koji leže na dnu fioke
spokojno kao grčke amfore u moru.
Iznad granice, iznad tvog budnog pogleda,
iznad nečije zenice, iznad zarđalog topa,
iznad baštenske kapije koje više nema,
iznad oblaka, iznad kiše koja pije rosu,
iznad puža koji ne zna uz kakvu se
statuu penje, iznad brzog voza,
koji ubrzano diše, iznad dečaka
koji vezuje kravatu uoči školske priredbe,
iznad gradskog parka, u kome još uvek leži
nekad izgubljeni švajcarski perorez.
Kad padne noć, sklonićemo se
u zvona, u lake kočije,
u bronzane balone.”
― Adam Zagajewski, Canvas: Poems

“OLD MARX He can’t think. London is damp, in every room someone coughs. He never did like winter. He rewrites past manuscripts time and again, without passion. The yellow paper is fragile as consumption. Why does life race stubbornly toward destruction? But spring returns in dreams, with snow that doesn’t speak in any known tongue. And where does love fit within his system? Where you find blue flowers. He despises anarchists, idealists bore him. He receives reports from Russia, far too detailed. The French grow rich. Poland is common and quiet. America never stops growing. Blood is everywhere, perhaps the wallpaper needs changing. He begins to suspect that poor humankind will always trudge across the old earth like the local lunatic shaking her fists at an unseen God.”
― Adam Zagajewski, Eternal Enemies: Poems

“Това, което ще дойде, ще бъде невидимо
и леко.
Това, което е, все се люшка между иронията
и страха.
Това, което оцелее, ще бъде синьо
като окото на гилотината.”
― Adam Zagajewski, Unseen Hand: Poems

“В музиката намирам сила, слабост и болка - трите стихии,
четвъртата няма име.
Чета поети, умрели и живи, уча се от тях
на издръжливост, вяра, гордост. Опитва да разбера
великите философи - най-често успявам
да уловя само късове от скъпоценните им мисли.”
― Adam Zagajewski, Unseen Hand: Poems

“In the gray Poland plundered by the Soviet utopia there was no shortage of cunning petty demons on the party payroll out searching for young souls with ballistic tendencies, souls who dreamed of greatness and despised the trifling daily round of worries and pursuits.”
― Adam Zagajewski, Another Beauty

“I’ve taken long walks, craving one thing only: lightning, transformation, you.”
― Adam Zagajewski

“Among all objects
the dead sparrow in its gray topcoat of feathers
is the least unusual.
Even a roadside stone looks like
life’s prince when compared
to a dead sparrow.
Flies circle it,
intent as scholars."

— Adam Zagajewski, “Dead Sparrow,” Without End: New & Selected Poems (Farrar, Straus and Giroux March 18, 2003)”
― Adam Zagajewski, Without End: New and Selected Poems