Marcin Świetlicki

Not Obvious

The reception given to the work of Marcin Świetlicki, one of the major poets of the middle generation, is rather paradoxical. Despite the fact that he often changes the masks he assumes, he is still invariably regarded above all as a poet of “black revelations”, a virtual nihilist. Another poet, Wojciech Bonowicz, has decided to change this image by putting together a selection of Świetlicki’s poems entitled Not Obvious. 77 Religious Poems by Marcin Świetlicki. This collection includes poems written over the past thirty years, the great majority of which have already been published in earlier volumes (only fifteen of the poems have never appeared in a book before). The title is a perfect reflection of the issues relating to Świetlicki’s religious poems. Why so? Firstly, the very concept of religious poetry is unclear, variously defined on different occasions. Secondly, the religious feeling that manifests itself in Świetlicki’s poems is very far from mainstream Polish religiosity – sometime so much so, that it really is not obvious at all. There is no alternative, as Świetlicki writes, for example: “…I have / not much of God inside me, I nurture / this shred”. In the poems Bonowicz has compiled the reader will not find any ecstatic hymns in praise of the Lord or His creation, or any accounts of intimate communication with God or the Great Mystery. It is poetry full of doubt and searching. As I see it, Świetlicki assumes that in the modern world there is a small, but real sphere that manifests the sacred in various ways, but reaching it or describing it in words is no easy or obvious task. To do so, you have to find your own, new language to express what is at heart inexpressible. Can it be done at all? A poem called “Universities” features the striking figure of the “deaf and dumb God”. Świetlicki seems to be hinting that the poet who wants to write about God is bound to become a bit of a deaf mute himself.

Robert Ostaszewski