Modern Poetry in Translation

Wojciech Bonowicz

Poet

Wojciech Bonowicz (b. 1967 in Oswiecim) is a poet, a columnist and an editor. He`s an author of six poetry volumes. The most recent is `Polish Signs` (2010). His volume `High Seas` was awarded the prestigious Gdynia Literary Prize (2007). He is also an essayist and literary critic working for one of the most influential Polish weeklies, 'Tygodnik Powszechny'.and for the monthly 'Znak'.

His poems celebrate freedom of speech in a quiet and unassuming fashion, at the same time not shying away from such ‘big’ forms as the chorus of an ancient tragedy or lament or prayer. His is a celebration of the will to speak through reflection on the repeated choruses of history, which need to be sung as much as love songs, evoking the living and the dead. Cornered by this need, the poet (or the speaker) must will the words out, under the breath, in order to breathe.

His poetry samples his two strong interests: philosophy and religion, although it does not manifest them openly. His poems are not declarations of faith; nor are they easy epiphanies. Rather, they are modest, human-size, personal revelations, which frequently set off to examine our understanding of suffering, evil, death – and leave us with even more questions. It is these questions, however, that allow us empathy and transcendence of our human limitations. Like Józef Tischner, the Catholic philosopher whose biography he has prepared (it was shortlisted for the most important literary award in Poland, the Nike Prize), Bonowicz believes that ‘man is the kind of tree which doesn’t want to bear the fruit of evil’.

- from Elżbieta Wójcik-Leese's introduction in MPT 3/12 Freed Speech