By Piotr Matywiecki
Introduction
As has been the case throughout its long and rich history, Polish poetry at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries speaks through a chorus of many strong and clear individualities. The general historic and literary processes to which this poetry is subject are indeed important. The attempts of literary critics to discover and define in today’s Polish poetry specific stylistic currents and conceptual threads are interesting. Yet the core value of Polish poetry resides in its colorful, poetic individualities.
For this reason my essay – which is a kind of extension of Jarosław Klejnocki’s sketch “Poezja polska w ostatnich 20 latach XX wieku” (Polish Poetry in the Final Twenty Years of the 20th Century) – will prove to be a reasoned review of individualities. This is primarily because I think it is much too early for any generalizations. These tend to kill the flavor of live emotion that this poetry grants us. I think that much more satisfaction can be drawn from listening to how easily – in spite of differences – the works of our greatest poets talk to each other, than from grouping tem in specific enclaves.
I will begin by describing only those poets who have recently and significantly enriched their own image in the eyes of readers, and omit those who were sufficiently and exhaustively described in Jarosław Klejnocki’s sketch. It is nevertheless so that recently the most glittering achievements have come from well-known poets and those whose work has thus far remained out of the limelight.
The Old Masters
