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In Praise of the Unfinished: Selected Poems
Hailed by Czeslaw Milosz as “the grande dame of Polish poetry” and named “one of the foremost Polish poets of the twentieth century” by Ryszard Kapuscinski, Julia Hartwig has long been considered the gold standard of poetry in her native Poland. With this career-spanning collection, we finally have a book of her work in English.
The tragic story of the last century flows naturally through Hartwig’s poems. She evokes the husbands who returned silent from battle (“What woman was told about the hell at Monte Cassino?”) and asks, “Why didn’t I dance on the Champs-Élysées / when the crowd cheered the end of the war? . . . Why was I fated to be on the main street of Lublin / watching regiments with red stars enter the city.” But there is also a welcoming of new experience in her verse, a sense that life, finally, is too beautiful to condemn. She seeks a higher peace, urging us to hear other voices: “an ermine’s cry, moan of a dove, / complaint of an owl—that remind us / the hardship of solitude is measured out equally.”
Hartwig’s compassionate spirit in the face of destruction and suffering, her apparent need to live in the moment, make her poems monumental and deeply touching and the introduction of her work here long overdue.
Return to My Childhood Home
Amid a dark silence of pines—the shouts of
young birches calling each other.
Everything is as it was. Nothing is as it was.
Speak to me, Lord of the child. Speak,
innocent terror!
To understand nothing. Each time in a different
way, from the first cry to the last breath.
Yet happy moments come to me from the past,
like bridesmaids carrying oil lamps.
From the Hardcover edition.
The tragic story of the last century flows naturally through Hartwig’s poems. She evokes the husbands who returned silent from battle (“What woman was told about the hell at Monte Cassino?”) and asks, “Why didn’t I dance on the Champs-Élysées / when the crowd cheered the end of the war? . . . Why was I fated to be on the main street of Lublin / watching regiments with red stars enter the city.” But there is also a welcoming of new experience in her verse, a sense that life, finally, is too beautiful to condemn. She seeks a higher peace, urging us to hear other voices: “an ermine’s cry, moan of a dove, / complaint of an owl—that remind us / the hardship of solitude is measured out equally.”
Hartwig’s compassionate spirit in the face of destruction and suffering, her apparent need to live in the moment, make her poems monumental and deeply touching and the introduction of her work here long overdue.
Return to My Childhood Home
Amid a dark silence of pines—the shouts of
young birches calling each other.
Everything is as it was. Nothing is as it was.
Speak to me, Lord of the child. Speak,
innocent terror!
To understand nothing. Each time in a different
way, from the first cry to the last breath.
Yet happy moments come to me from the past,
like bridesmaids carrying oil lamps.
From the Hardcover edition.
160 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 4, 2008
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About the author
Julia Hartwig
69 books7 followersJulia Hartwig was a Polish writer and translator, considered to be one of Poland's most important female poets.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
November 30, 2014
"In Praise of the Unfinished" was translated by myself and my wife, by John Carpenter and Bogdana Carpenter. We are a translation team. The volume draws on four of
Julia Hartwig's books of poems in Polish, four of her most outstanding collections. The English title of our collection comes from the last poem, "Feeling the Way." The first line of the poem is: "The most beautiful is what is still unfinished."
Bogdana and John Carpenter first met Julia Hartwig at a poetry reading in Warsaw. We approached her afterward, expressed our admiration, and asked questions which she graciously answered. When we went home we immediately began translating her poems. We continue to translate her work. Every time we return to Warsaw we visit her. She has become a good friend.
Julia Hartwig's books of poems in Polish, four of her most outstanding collections. The English title of our collection comes from the last poem, "Feeling the Way." The first line of the poem is: "The most beautiful is what is still unfinished."
Bogdana and John Carpenter first met Julia Hartwig at a poetry reading in Warsaw. We approached her afterward, expressed our admiration, and asked questions which she graciously answered. When we went home we immediately began translating her poems. We continue to translate her work. Every time we return to Warsaw we visit her. She has become a good friend.
February 16, 2019
Brodsky
The lagoon was witness to his winter days
to the harsh solitude he chose
The torments of attachment don’t disappear
yet this evening of Venetian fog
and the pain of beauty are stronger than pain carried inside
How soothing can be distance from all the things
we came to love
the sad pride we can also exist here
A spot was waiting for him on the island of San Michele
even in exile
he was master of his place
He pointed out this cemetery
his love for the lagoon would be enough
to merit it
When the flatterers and slanderers fell silent
he heard in the bay the splash of a wave struck by an oar
Translating American Poets
They might not care for such a change of place—
from Long Island Santa Barbara the City Lights bookstore in San Francisco
from a trapper’s shack on a clear stream in Pate Valley
from beds where they lie still half asleep
from smoke-filled taverns and clubs
from motels where they throw off shoes after a day’s hike in a clay valley
from a secluded farm in Missouri from a well-to-do house in Washington
from a night bar in New York City—
They rebel against this uncalled-for move
to Eastern Europe which they know so little
though it’s not you but your poems that have wandered over to us
You don’t even know what a warm welcome met them here
for reasons I can only guess without certainty:
because you honored in them your anxieties and vanities
your maladies and follies your cars and flowers
your travels and landscapes gathered along the way
your hatred of big cities and rapture over them
Chicago New York New Orleans the Golden Gate Brooklyn Bridge
names dreamt for years by European teenagers
together with hopes for great change and fame
This is the dowry you bring
in poems not aiming at greatness but showing the calendar of ordinariness
seen through the eyes of a farmer a neurotic and hypochondriac
a dipsomaniac a nymphomaniac a tramp
brimming with life trampled by a gang of misfortunes and failures
proud of democracy and cursing its abuses
It is wonderful to be able to look at one’s own country
like at a man whose virtues and vices can be discussed without fear
The lagoon was witness to his winter days
to the harsh solitude he chose
The torments of attachment don’t disappear
yet this evening of Venetian fog
and the pain of beauty are stronger than pain carried inside
How soothing can be distance from all the things
we came to love
the sad pride we can also exist here
A spot was waiting for him on the island of San Michele
even in exile
he was master of his place
He pointed out this cemetery
his love for the lagoon would be enough
to merit it
When the flatterers and slanderers fell silent
he heard in the bay the splash of a wave struck by an oar
Translating American Poets
They might not care for such a change of place—
from Long Island Santa Barbara the City Lights bookstore in San Francisco
from a trapper’s shack on a clear stream in Pate Valley
from beds where they lie still half asleep
from smoke-filled taverns and clubs
from motels where they throw off shoes after a day’s hike in a clay valley
from a secluded farm in Missouri from a well-to-do house in Washington
from a night bar in New York City—
They rebel against this uncalled-for move
to Eastern Europe which they know so little
though it’s not you but your poems that have wandered over to us
You don’t even know what a warm welcome met them here
for reasons I can only guess without certainty:
because you honored in them your anxieties and vanities
your maladies and follies your cars and flowers
your travels and landscapes gathered along the way
your hatred of big cities and rapture over them
Chicago New York New Orleans the Golden Gate Brooklyn Bridge
names dreamt for years by European teenagers
together with hopes for great change and fame
This is the dowry you bring
in poems not aiming at greatness but showing the calendar of ordinariness
seen through the eyes of a farmer a neurotic and hypochondriac
a dipsomaniac a nymphomaniac a tramp
brimming with life trampled by a gang of misfortunes and failures
proud of democracy and cursing its abuses
It is wonderful to be able to look at one’s own country
like at a man whose virtues and vices can be discussed without fear
October 7, 2008
I think this is when I began to dig Slavic poetry.
October 4, 2022
wishing it remained unfinished
December 17, 2024
2.5. just wasn't really for me
August 21, 2017
Splendid!! is the only word to describe the poetic prowess of Julia Hartwig.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews