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on my own. It wasn’t easy. Especially at the turn of the century, I was in a very difficult financial situation. One dress and one pair of shoes had to be enough for several years. I know what pov- erty means. I know how it overwhelms a person mentally and physically. Let’s not be fooled into thinking that “it’s better to be than to have”. I believe balance is necessary in life, also in these matters. This doesn’t mean I regret refusing to cooperate with certain institutions...
I really liked what I once read by Iwaszkiewicz. He claimed he had seen the fall of the tsarist regime, the revolution, successive wars, and changes in political systems in his lifetime. In his view, regardless of all, culture is essential and we should protect it. Some people still re- sent him for “cooperating with the regime”. But as a head of the Polish Writers’ Union, he helped many artists and gave them genuine support. He mentioned in his diaries how much energy, effort, and emotion it cost him. And at the same time, he left a wonderful literary legacy behind.
Józef Baran wrote about Hanami (Norberti- num, Lublin 2023): she walks on eggshells around words. She weighs them, measures them, counts them, writes little and mean- ingfully, that is, she always wants to get to the heart of the matter. At the same time, she ensures words to not end with one meaning, but carry many meanings, or rather they leave a trail of meanings. The form refers to East- ern contemplative poetry (hence one of the beautiful poems is titled Hanami). Why did you choose such a short, miniature form? Is the reference to the atmosphere of Eastern contemplative poetry a way for you to find your own poetic form? Was it the form you were aiming for from the very beginning?
When I started writing, I often heard advices to fit as much content as possible into a short form, so that there would be no unnecessary words in the poem. But I also had a natural in- clination towards such a short form. However, I saw others writing long poems and I envied them a little for being able to do so. It was on- ly a few years ago, at a social gathering, that an astrologer I met by chance explained to me that I write short poems because I have... Mercury in Aries. Maybe that’s true, I don’t know anything about astrology. I decided that since it’s written in the stars, I won’t fight this tendency. I also think that today, when every- one’s rushing around unnecessarily, a poem like this—short like an advertising slogan— has a better chance of reaching the minds and hearts of readers. And that’s what we’re all about, after all.
Your latest Polish-English collection, Wiersze wybrane / Selected poems (Veridian, Warsaw 2024), which I had the pleasure of editing, is a selection of new poems and those already published in previous volumes. Why did you decide on this selection? And who translated your poems into English?
In 2003, I participated in the International Haiku Conference at the Manggha Museum of Japanese Art and Technology in Kraków. There were poets from the United States among the invited guests. I won first prize in the One Po- em Contest, organised as part of the event. My poem was then translated into English and published in the “Modern Haiku: An In- dependent Journal of Haiku and Haiku Stud- ies” magazine in the United States. It was the first translation and publication of my poem abroad. Later, the late Danusia Błaszak pub- lished my works in the Contemporary Writers
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