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Tag: Adam Zagajewski

2022

Saturday, January 1st

like nobody else

James Brown (1933-2006), live, Paris, 1968

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lagniappe

random sights

this morning, Oak Park, Ill.

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reading table

You shout from the other room
You ask me how to spell boogie-woogie
And instantly I think what luck
no war has been declared
no fire has consumed
our city’s monuments
our bodies our dwellings

The river didn’t flood
no friends
have been arrested
It’s only boogie-woogie
I sigh relieved
and say it’s spelled just like it sounds
boogie-woogie

—Adam Zagajewski (1945–2021), “Boogie-Woogie” (translated from the Polish by Clare Cavanagh)

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2021

Thursday, December 30th

spellbinding

Daniil Trifonov (1991-, piano), live, Verbier (Switzerland), 2012: Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849), Eight Études (Op. 10, No. 11; Op. 10, No. 6; Op. 25, No. 1; Op. 25, No. 5; Op. 10, No. 5; Op. 25, No. 6; Op. 25, No. 7; Op. 25, No. 11)

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lagniappe

reading table

Look, look greedily,
when dusk approaches,
look insatiably,
look without fear.

—Adam Zagajewski (1945–2021), from “Mountains” (translated from the Polish by Clare Cavanagh)

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2021

Sunday, March 14th

sounds of Chicago

Gospel Songbirds (featuring Otis Clay [1942-2016], 1:55-), “Help Me Run This Race,” live (TV show [Jubilee Showcase]), Chicago, 1964

 

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lagniappe

art beat: other day, Art Institute of Chicago

Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), Grapes, Lemons, Pears, and Apples, 1887 (detail)

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reading table

He walks on, northwards, toward the snow
and things unseen, unknown.
Slowly the imperfect cities’ sounds grow still,
only streams hold forth chaotically
while white clouds play at nothingness.
He hears an oriole’s song, delicate,
uncertain, like a prayer, like weeping.

—Adam Zagajewski (1945-), from “The Great Poet Basho Begins His Journey,” translated from Polish by Clare Cavanagh (The Threepenny Review, Spring, 2021)

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2018

Wednesday, July 4th

violin festival
day three

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Chaconne (Partita No. 2 in D Minor); Ivry Gitlis (violin), live, Tokyo, 1990

 

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lagniappe

reading table

Try to Praise the Mutilated World
by Adam Zagajewski (1945-)
(translated from Polish by Clare Cavanagh)

Try to praise the mutilated world.
Remember June’s long days,
and wild strawberries, drops of rosé wine.
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 going 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 feather a thrush lost,
and the gentle light that strays and vanishes
and returns.

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