Mój latający dywan / My Flying Carpet

Dedicated to tkmorin and my international readers.

Shortly  after my announcement of a long break in writing my blog, I have received a new  award nomination from tkmorin, a creator of a brilliant blog on the subject of history of Canada.

What a wonderful coincidence: thank you, friend! As before, after the nomination by Stephanie and by Marcela, I haven’t had time to implement the necessary procedure required in such situation. However, I’ve decided to thank you in a different, rather unusual way.

I’m extending to you, tkmorin, a virtual invitation to Poland with a photo showing the Poland Travel Guide Polska / Poland with my favourite wooden Polish birds perching on top of the book.

I am truly happy to be a member of the blogger’s society. It means so much to me for a reason completely inconceivable to citizens of the free world. For a long time I lived in a communist state, practically without open borders. Many years ago meeting people from other lands in Poland was almost a miracle for a humble citizen, and talking to them—hard or quite impossible due to our poor knowledge of foreign languages. This has been changing slowly at first, and recently much more quickly. In spite of this change, however,  I continue to be amazed that I am able to  ‘talk’ to so many people all over the world, from each continent (excluding Antarctica), from over 60 countries , and that they are reading my blog. So this blog at wordpress.com is like a magic carpet from a beautiful tale. You can see a part of it below under the title A Whole New World:

Of course I am not a beautiful, young princess, but sometimes I feel like a girl flying through the skies, gazing at the following people (in the alphabetical order, with the exception of tkmorin) :

tkmorin

Agroekonomija from Serbia

Andrzej from Poland

Bente from Norway

Cheyenne from US

Chris from Indonesia

Elisabeth from France

Jan from Belgium

Joseph from India

Katy from Czech Republic

Martha from Italy

Marsha from US

Micheline from  Canada

Ralph from Spain

Maria and Tim from US

Marcela from US

Uzoma from Nigeria

Rebecca from Canada

Przemysław from Poland

Sigoese from Indonesia

Stephanie from US

Razca from Romania

Wendy from US

Virginia from US

Volfee from Poland …

It’s a never-ending list; I have to stop!

Once more: so long, everybody!

Wanda

Magdalenki przed Wielką Przerwą / Madeleines before a Great Break

Dear Friends,

I have received two new nominations for blogosphere awards. I’m sending my warmest greetings to the two persons who themselves have created great blogs and who recently have nominated me for lovely awards.  I would like to extend my deep gratitude to:

STEPHANIE

and

MARCELA

Unfortunately, because at the moment I am involved in several complex projects at my museum and at home, I have no time to implement nomination procedures. Instead I have decided to present a special gift to my most favourite bloggers. It is a MADELEINE .

On this photo you can see the  madeleines  I baked myself for a gathering of my Polish friends  who meet at the museum to discuss literature. Since on this particular occasion we talked about Marcel Proust I presented them with these famous little pastries, which they ate with gusto!   Some time ago I have written in this blog about madeleines, invented in the Polish king Stanislaw Leszczynski’s kitchen:

https://wandamichalakdomkuncewiczow.wordpress.com/2013/02/04/byl-sobie-krol-once-upon-a-time-there-was-a-king/

Thus a delicious MADELEINE goes to STEPHANIE and MARCELA and ALL my good FRIENDS from the  blogosphere.

So, did you get my madeleine? Can you taste  its flavour?  Enjoy.  You may sip some of Marcel Proust’s lime blossom tea as well; they go well together.

See you later, my friends. I will be very busy this summer but I will try to come back as soon as possible.

With  kind greetings,

Wanda

Wyrazić Niewyrażalne / To Express the Unexpressible

Amerykański poeta W.S. Merwin otrzymał nagrodę Zbigniewa Herberta.

Wręczono ją uroczyście, wraz z czekiem na 50 tysięcy dolarów,  3 czerwca 2013 roku w Teatrze Polskim w Warszawie.

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American poet William  Stanley  Merwin has been awarded the international Zbigniew Herbert Prize (dedicated to the memory of the late Polish writer. Merwin is its first recipient).

The award was presented, along with a check for $50,000, during a ceremony on June 3, 2013, at the Teatr Polski (Polish Theatre) in Warsaw, Poland.

Miasto bez imienia / City Without A Name / Miestas be vardo

Miasto z wiersza Czesława Miłosza to Wilno na Litwie, królestwo urodzenia mojej matki.

A town from Czeslaw Milosz’s poem is Vilnius,  Lithuania, my mother’s Native Realm.

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Cytuję tylko jeden wers z tego utworu po polsku, po angielsku i  po litewsku w tłumaczeniu Tomasa Venclovy.

I am citing only one verse from this poem in Polish, English, and Lithuanian in translation by Tomas Venclova.

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On mówi wszystko o Wilnie / Vilnius.

It says everything about Wilno / Vilnius.

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Tutaj nie ma wcześniej i nie ma później, wszystkie pory dnia i roku trwają równocześnie.

Here there is no earlier and no later; the seasons of the year and of the day are simultaneous.

Nebėra čia anksčiau nei vėliau, visi dienos ir metų laikai vienu metu traukias.

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To jest Miłosza Rozprawa o czasie.

It is Milosz Treatise on Time.

 

Lepsze niż najlepszy wiersz / Better Than the Best Poem

Radość o poranku / Joy in the Morning

Wehikuł czasu / A Time Travel Vehicle

Jadę do Poznania, miejsca urodzenia.

I am going to my native town Poznań.

Godne uwagi są secesyjne kamienice z końca XIX wieku w mojej rodzinne dzielnicy Jeżyce. Tutaj się urodziłam.

Noteworthy are Poznań’s  late-19th-century tenement houses in the Jeżyce district which represent a showcase of Poznań’s Secessionist architecture. I was born here.

Ciąg dalszy nastąpi.

To be continued.

A Gate / Brama

Hope by Czeslaw Milosz

Hope is with you when you believe
The earth is not a dream but living flesh,
That sight, touch, and hearing do not lie,
That all things you have ever seen here
Are like a garden looked at from a gate.

You cannot enter. But you’re sure it’s there.
Could we but look more clearly and wisely
We might discover somewhere in the garden
A strange new flower and an unnamed star […]

Nadzieja Czesława Miłosza

Nadzieja bywa, jeżeli ktoś wierzy,
że ziemia nie jest snem, lecz żywym ciałem,
I że wzrok, dotyk ani słuch nie kłamie.
A wszystkie rzeczy, które tutaj znałem,
Są niby ogród, kiedy stoisz w bramie.

Wejść tam nie można. Ale jest na pewno.
Gdybyśmy lepiej i mądrzej patrzyli,
Jeszcze kwiat nowy i gwiazdę niejedną
W ogrodzie świata byśmy zobaczyli […]

What am I writing?

Marsha

http://tchistorygal.wordpress.com/

has asked me – on behalf of her friend Elane – what I have been writing.  I will try to answer this question.

I am still working on the history of Poles, in particular of a social group which has been involved in the struggle for freedom (in metaphorical sense as well). I seek to describe their activities for common good.

My main purpose is to create fiction, but I also write essays, paragraphs on the net, as well as little theatre plays and poems.
I have written the following texts (some of them performed in our humble museum’s theatre):

1.      Where are you, fairy? (A children’s book about being scared and how to avoid it);

2.      Good Heavens!  (A novel about trauma, escaping it and recovering from it. The action takes place in various spots in many different countries from ancient times to present days and sometimes in the future as well;

                                                                                                                                                                              Pinxit Jan Michalak

3.      Caucasian Rug (Screenplay for a short documentary  movie with fictional elements about people in exile);

4.      Jingle Bells and Bells in the Winter Time (about three poets: Brodsky, Venclova and Miłosz);

5.      A Talk between a poet and a boy (a short theatre play about Zbigniew Herbert);

6.      Hold your head high, my little son (second short  play about Herbert);

7.      Winter in Majorca (a theatre play about the composer Frederic Chopin and the writer George Sand);

8.      Tunnel (a play about traveling and dying in the life of the writer Maria Kuncewicz);

9.       Tiddlywinks (a play about the adventures of the brave and merry Jerzy Kuncewicz)

10.  123 Women from Triangle Shirtwaists Company (short theatre play about the origins of Women’s Day);

11.   Hand Puppets and Herbs (collection of poems);
I also have started to work on a novel  Death in Estepona  (about a person from a former communist country who wants to die  in the ancient city of Estepona).

That’s all!

Special greetings to Elane.

Best wishes!

W.

Dziadek do orzechów i inne przedmioty / A Nutcracker and Other Objects

Inanimate objects are always correct and cannot, unfortunately, be reproached with anything […] Zbigniew Herbert (1924-1998) , Polish Poet.

Joseph Brodsky, famous Russian poet (the Nobel Prize in Literature 1987) about Zbigniew Herbert:

[…] What kind of poet is Zbigniew Herbert? Is he difficult? Is he hard to follow, hard to scan, impossible to remember? Look at „Pebble,” the first poem of this selection, and decide for yourself.

What kind of poem is this, and what is it all about? About nature, perhaps? Perhaps. I, for one, though, think that if it is about nature, then it is about human nature. About its autonomy, about its resistance, about, if you will, its survival. In this sense it is a very Polish poem, considering that nation’s recent, more exactly, modem, history. And it is a very modern poem, because Polish history, one may say, is modern history in miniature—well, more exactly, in a pebble. Because whether you are a Pole or not, what history wants is to destroy you. The only way to survive, to endure its almost geological pressure, is to acquire the features of a pebble, including the false warmth once you find yourself in somebody’s hands. […]

Pebble

The pebble
is a perfect creature

equal to itself
mindful of its limits

filled exactly
with a pebbly meaning

with a scent which does not remind one of anything
does not frighten anything away does not arouse desire

its ardour and coldness
are just and full of dignity

I feel a heavy remorse
when I hold it in my hand
and its noble body
is permeated by false warmth

    —Pebbles cannot be tamed
to the end they will look at us
with a calm and very clear eye.

From: The Wilson Quarterly

http://www.wilsonquarterly.com/article.cfm?AT=0&AID=1621