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I Wrote Stone
Bringing together for the first time in English a selection of poems from his two previously published collections, Kapuscinski offers up a thoughtful, philosophical verse, often aphoristic in tone and structure, that is engaged politically, morally, and viscerally with the world around him. Translated from the Polish.
- GenresPoetryNonfiction
96 pages, Paperback
First published September 19, 2007
97 people want to read
About the author
Ryszard Kapuściński
112 books1,976 followersRyszard Kapuściński debuted as a poet in Dziś i jutro at the age of 17 and has been a journalist, writer, and publicist. In 1964 he was appointed to the Polish Press Agency and began traveling around the developing world and reporting on wars, coups and revolutions in Asia, the Americas, and Europe; he lived through twenty-seven revolutions and coups, was jailed forty times, and survived four death sentences. During some of this time he also worked for the Polish Secret Service, although little is known of his role.
See also Ryszard Kapuściński Prize
See also Ryszard Kapuściński Prize
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 1, 2018
A Note
Ah yes
it took a long time
before I learned to think about man
as a human being
before I discovered this way of thinking
before I took this path
in this salutary direction
and speaking of man or contemplating him
I stopped asking such questions as
is he white or black
an anarchist or monarchist
fashionable or outmoded
ours or theirs
and I began to ask
what in him is of human being
and is he
and I also asked whether to be a human being is a given,
it happens of its own accord, or whether one must bear
steadily toward it, acquiesce to it faithfully, awaken in
oneself the desire to be a human being
and henceforth I began to look for him
in his distinctiveness
in his uniqueness
I wanted to draw near
above all to the human being in myself
inside my own self
I desired that he exist in me
without labels, signs, banners
without a tomahawk
or plumes
that he cast away his tin bugle
*
Discoveries
Pain bursts your heart:
you begin to sense the heart
your eyes suddenly go blind:
you begin to sense the eyes
your memory drowns in darkness:
you begin to sense memory
you discover yourself
through the denial of the self
you exist
through the negation of existence
April 1, 18
Review to come? Maybe on my blog.
Ah yes
it took a long time
before I learned to think about man
as a human being
before I discovered this way of thinking
before I took this path
in this salutary direction
and speaking of man or contemplating him
I stopped asking such questions as
is he white or black
an anarchist or monarchist
fashionable or outmoded
ours or theirs
and I began to ask
what in him is of human being
and is he
and I also asked whether to be a human being is a given,
it happens of its own accord, or whether one must bear
steadily toward it, acquiesce to it faithfully, awaken in
oneself the desire to be a human being
and henceforth I began to look for him
in his distinctiveness
in his uniqueness
I wanted to draw near
above all to the human being in myself
inside my own self
I desired that he exist in me
without labels, signs, banners
without a tomahawk
or plumes
that he cast away his tin bugle
*
Discoveries
Pain bursts your heart:
you begin to sense the heart
your eyes suddenly go blind:
you begin to sense the eyes
your memory drowns in darkness:
you begin to sense memory
you discover yourself
through the denial of the self
you exist
through the negation of existence
April 1, 18
Review to come? Maybe on my blog.
May 1, 2019
I adore Kapuscinski's prose, his tales of third world upheavals, of meetings and goings-on in the oft-forgotten outskirts of our world.
This collection of his poetry is sad, often focusing on pain and loneliness, things he must have felt much of in his solo journeyings. They are understated and melancholy, and they grasp at those places where words cannot reach. Just like good poetry should.
"Perhaps the greatest thing
expresses itself with silence
Like the universe
the word
an appearance
an attempt to grasp
the ungraspable
the suspicion that words
erect false signposts
lead one to dead ends
lead one into temptation"
His poetry gives a clue to how he wrote, his effortless and clear prose style. Consider this quote, from the foreword:
"I need poetry as a linguistic exercise; I cannot give up poetry. Poetry requires a deep concentration on the language, and that is good for the prose. Prose has to have music, and poetry is rhythm. When I begin to write, I must find a rhythm. It carries me like a river. If I cannot create a rhythmical quality in a sentence, I discard it. First the sentence has to find its inner rhythm, then the passage, and finally the whole chapter."
My appreciation for Kapuscinski has only grown with this short book.
This collection of his poetry is sad, often focusing on pain and loneliness, things he must have felt much of in his solo journeyings. They are understated and melancholy, and they grasp at those places where words cannot reach. Just like good poetry should.
"Perhaps the greatest thing
expresses itself with silence
Like the universe
the word
an appearance
an attempt to grasp
the ungraspable
the suspicion that words
erect false signposts
lead one to dead ends
lead one into temptation"
His poetry gives a clue to how he wrote, his effortless and clear prose style. Consider this quote, from the foreword:
"I need poetry as a linguistic exercise; I cannot give up poetry. Poetry requires a deep concentration on the language, and that is good for the prose. Prose has to have music, and poetry is rhythm. When I begin to write, I must find a rhythm. It carries me like a river. If I cannot create a rhythmical quality in a sentence, I discard it. First the sentence has to find its inner rhythm, then the passage, and finally the whole chapter."
My appreciation for Kapuscinski has only grown with this short book.
June 10, 2020
As everything I ever read from Kapuscinski, wonderful. Even in poetry, his writing in beautiful and full of humanity.
“You’ll never make up
a day you’ve lost,
the world went on,
you stayed behind your hands
empty your eyes empty.
You sit on a park bench
staring at an ant,
but even it went on.
You were left alone.”
“They stand gazing—
they hope for paradise
and the caravel reaches the shore
and they see sand, stone and cliffs
a dead horizon”
“I wrote stone
I wrote house
I wrote town
I shattered the stone
I demolished the house
I obliterated the town
the page traces the struggles
between creation
and annihilation.”
“You’ll never make up
a day you’ve lost,
the world went on,
you stayed behind your hands
empty your eyes empty.
You sit on a park bench
staring at an ant,
but even it went on.
You were left alone.”
“They stand gazing—
they hope for paradise
and the caravel reaches the shore
and they see sand, stone and cliffs
a dead horizon”
“I wrote stone
I wrote house
I wrote town
I shattered the stone
I demolished the house
I obliterated the town
the page traces the struggles
between creation
and annihilation.”
March 14, 2019
Poems, all of them.
November 25, 2014
I miss Kapuscinski.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews