'I can't help you'
Poor moth, I can't help you,
I can only turn out the light.
—Ryszard Krynicki (born 1943)
[Translated from the Polish by by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh]
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I apologize for the rough spelling, this is correct:
Translated from the Polish by Stanisław Barańczak and Clare Cavanagh
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'The tongue is wild meat that grows in wounds...'
—Ryszard Krynicki (born 1943)
[Translated from the Polish by Clare Cavanagh]
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Ryszard Krynicki is a poet I started reading and loving years ago after meeting him in the title of a poem dedicated to him by the great Zbigniew Herbert ... 'To Ryszard Krynicki—A Letter'
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'Not much will remain Ryszard in truth not much/
of the poetry of our mad century Rilke Eliot sure/
a few other worthy shamans who knew the secret/
of word spells time-resistant forms without which/
no phrase deserves memory and speech is like sand
...'
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'... we came too easily to believe beauty does not save...
I don’t know—my friend—and that’s why
I send you these owl’s riddles in the night
a warm embrace
a bow from my shadow'
—Zbigniew Herbert
[Translated by Alissa Valles]
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