Pieter, you are right. I did not mean that Stachura-Vysotski-Kaczmarski are in some deeper way alike. Not at all. Although in the deepest layer (the most important one) of their humanhood they naturally very alike!
Look here:
www.arts.gla.ac.uk/Slavonic/Epicentre/Khairov%20on%20Stachura.htmStachura – Vysotsky
Those who have an idea of basic tendencies and names in Polish and Russian literatures can not avoid comparing the controversial and outstanding figures of Edward Stachura and Vladimir Vysotsky. They were born and died within one year of each other (Stachura – 1937-1979. Vysotsky – 1938-1980). They both lived a turbulent life, neither could live without a guitar, both travelled a lot. Vysotsky wrote several hundred songs, some of which are considered outstanding exemplars of Russian poetry. But if we look to the origin and peculiarities of their talent we find their approach to poetry and life to be absolute polar opposites. Whereas Vysotsky wrote his songs (poems) on behalf of different people from different professions and social types so everybody might recognize him- or herself in them (a soldier, a prisoner, a sportsman etc.), Stachura was searching inside his own soul. While Vysotsky in his songs laughed and transmitted the trials and tribulations of people using their colloquial and even faulty language, Stachura was preoccupied with the search for a true language that could serve him as a medium in his attempt to come to terms with the world. Vysotsky and Stachura represent two approaches to the word: the word of the soil (Vysotsky) and the word of the soul (Stachura). In the philosophical analysis of Stachura’s work by Andrzej Moszczynski, Stachura was doomed to failure in his search of true language. But his struggle for it and his attempt to use his life as a measurement of the truth rank him among the outstanding figures in the world of literature.
Thank you Wojtek, I loved reading the link and the text you put under it very much
for me it is a sort of journey in poetry of the second half of the 20th century,
in the Central-and Eastern parts of our Great Continent.
Unfortunately and to my shame I don't know
Stachura,
Vysotski and
Kaczmarski, and therefor can not judge your words. I just believe you.
The sentance "
Although in the deepest layer (the most important one) of their humanhood they naturally very alike!" is on itself alone Proze, this adds once more
to my conviction, that I haven't read enough and that there is so much more
Poetry to be explored. We have a Dutch cultural Broadcast cooperation,
VPRO, which always ended it's broadcasting on sundaynight with a melancholigal tune and a fragment
of a dead poet, It's called the ‘
Dead Poets Almanac‘, (
boeken.vpro.nl/dossiers/27442883/ ) and during the years I have maybe seen hundreds of poets from various decades reading their poems themselves. Sometimes they send a large collection of the ‘
Dead Poets Almanac‘ whole night. Poetry diehards listen then all night to the Dutch, German, English, Russian, and other poets who read their poems somewhere in time, in space, in black and white and color.
I saw the fiftees, sixtees, seventees and eightees comming beye; Allen Ginsberg's Howl, Wystan Hugh Auden, T.S. Eliot, Kenneth Koch ('New York School of poetry'), Joseph Brodsky and etc.,etc. For me it is very important to hear someone performing a poem,
because with the right voice, way of telling, and using ones voice, a poem can get's it's
musical lyrical expression, it's dramatic deepness, it's tragic impact, it's witty lightness
or it's natural shape. There are so many kinds of poetry and poets!
I have to admid that I was never into poetry that much, but because of this program,
good friends whom carried a cultural tradition with them, and interesting Forum members, who show me Polish and Russian poets I grow slowly into it.
Brodsky wished, he said that one of the most important things he tought his American students was "learning thousands of poems from their head", because the oral tradition is getting lost. He said that he would be satisfied when each of his students knew a collection -3000- of poetic tradition).
I read Brodsky only in English, but saw him speaking out in Russian his poetry, and
although I could not understand it, it made a great impression in how he did it.
That is so great about Russia, that they keep their emotional and traditional attachment
to their great cultural heritage, that Russians cherish their Poetry and know the
poems. I think that might be the same in Poland, because many people know Polish
poems and songs.
Pop-music and PoetryLyrics of songs were my first link to poetry, the songs of the British New Wave Bands Warsaw and it's follow up
Joy Division, the lyrics of
David Bowie's seventees albums, the Velvet Underground, Siouxsie & The Banshees,
Nina Hagen songs, Ann Clark,
Patty Smith and the Pretenders. And than people ask me, do you like Bob Dylan? Answer, I was not aware of this genius of texts for a long, long time. Don't know him much right now, either.
I write about Modern Western Pop-music, because on a later date I realised that my late
fascination for some sort of poetry, was infleunced by the doom of New Wave.
That dark, melancholic and sometimes fatalist atmosphere which attracted teenagers and adeloscents like me in that time, have the same drive as Edward Stachura, they were outsiders, travelled around and try to find their own language
and musical direction. As a Proze man it is important to sit down for a poem,
because it shortness and directness, clearness and esthetical form, beauty
and power often beat, a novel, essay or song.
Warsaw & Joy Division are for me poetry;
Warsaw (the song, from the band Warsaw; 1977)
Warsaw 1977 (cd3#01)
3,5,0,1,2,5, Go!
I was there in the back stage,
When the first light came around.
I grew up like a changeling,
To win the first time around.
I can see all the weakness.
I pick all the faults.
Well I concede all the faith tests,
Just ot stick in your throats.31G, 31G, 31G
I hung around in your soundtrack,
To mirror all that you've done,
To find the right side of reason,
To kill the three lies for one,
I can see all the cold facts.
I can see through your eyes.
All this talk made no contact.
No matter how hard we tried.31G, 31G, 31G
I can still hear the footsteps.I can see only walls.
I slid into your man-traps,
With no hearing at all.
I just see contradiction,
Had to give up the fight,
Just to live in the past tense,
To make believe you were right.
"
Warszawa"
"
Warszawa" is a mostly instrumental song by
David Bowie, co-written with
Brian Eno and originally released in 1977 on the album
Low.
The arrangement is meant to evoke the desolation of Warsaw at the time of Bowie's visit in 1976. The impressionistic lyrics are based upon a recording of a Polish children's choir (it was probably Mazowsze, however, there is no information about this, and it remains more or less unanswered).
The piece resorted to many of Brian Eno's spontaneous and deeply experimental techniques, with Bowie choosing the creation of a texture over creating a piece that fit in context with his other songs. Resorting to Eno's techniques of "planned accidents," first a click track of 430 clicks was created by hand. From these clicks, a few were selected at random and catalogued. Eno and Bowie would each wait for their randomly selected clicks to sound, which would cue them to play a chord. When the clicks were removed, the song's basic skeleton of chord changes remained, and the gaps were filled by their writing, with Eno on instrumentals and Bowie on vocals.
The vocal section on its own is spectacular, all vocals were composed and performed entirely by Bowie, despite the presence of 110 voices. Eno remarked that despite his tendency to work slowly as his own synthesizer technician, Bowie managed to complete his portion of the track rather quickly, recording all his voices in 20 minutes.
It was used as a live opener on Bowie's 1978 and 2002 tours. Rather than quickly delving deeply into loud rock music, the song was used to intentionally provoke the audience into a calm, holding them initially in deep suspense. Bowie's choice to maintain a low profile during 1978 was expressed through his entrance to the stage during this song, not singing, but simply sinking into the band and playing the synthesizer until his cue to sing the lyrics.
The band
Joy Division was originally named
Warsaw in honor of this song.