A L U M N I M A G A Z I N E - Colby-Sawyer College

A Poet Talks to Herself
Assistant Professor of Humanities Ewa Chrusciel,
a native of Poland, has published her first book in
English, Strata, which she describes as “a hybrid text
incorporating letters and poems (that) investigates issues
of identity, mediation, protest, Central European politics
and the Sublime.” Below are excerpts of an interview in
which Chrusciel asked, and answered, questions about
her work that she has always wished to be asked.
Why do you write in your non-native
language?
Experience determines the choice of the language.
To change your language you must change your life.
I changed my life by flying to the U.S.A. Writing in
English is the work of smuggling metaphors from one
language into another. It is a work of bilingualism
and mistranslation, so it is a constant mental shuffling
between the languages, between these two conceptualizations
of the world. Writing in two languages creates
bewilderment for us and for our readers. It changes us.
It transports us to new places.
And writing poems is a way of being in two
places at once?
Writing comes from a longing for the presence of another
place, for bilocation. My desire for linguistic bilocation is
related to my bilingualism, which means inhabiting two
cognitive places at once. Bilingualism is for those who are
unable to let it go, who nest in two places at once. For
those who dwell in impossibility. Poems bilocate to express
what is ineffable. To give tribute to Mystery; to the insufficiency
of any language.
Why so many animals and birds in your poems?
I see Beauty in animals. I see Mystery in animals. And, as
Flannery O’Connor says, Beauty will save the world. I think
Beauty has teeth and it terrifies. Poetry is a tribute to such
Beauty. That wildness comes from the fact that poems are
tigers that jump out of us. That wildness is my response
to Mystery.
Do we write poems or do poems write us?
If we think we already know what to write, we never
encounter the subject of a poem that should “write us.”
Likewise, if we already know what we are reading, we
never learn anything about literature. Without the sense
of surprise, bewilderment and discovery, there is no
literature; there is no learning. The opening up of a subject
is what Jorie Graham calls the “poem’s occasion,” when
we let ourselves meander and encounter the subject which
changes us.
a poem
Children swing on a rope down to a river. Water is shocked
by this splutter. We stay on shore, even though we know the
water is master of gravitation and will save us from flight.
Unlike Mary’s Yes, a swing into hearts ajar.
I dream of the day when my syllables will hold rough
wood, my letters will be sewn in a stove or fireplace. It’s not
the sacrifice we resist, but the beauty. The intensity of the
instance burns. For it has to turn into another instance. There
is nobility in asking the same thing over and over.
Children swing on a rope down to a river. Water is shocked
by this splutter. The truth burns us before it falls away. We
remain on shore.
When did she start to witness evanescence? The animals saw
her suffering in light and saw that it was good and took her
light in suffering. A dog started to bleed. A cat died after she
left. Life was not enough. The occasional splutter of light. The
simplicity of smile. There is nobility in asking.
Children swing on a rope down to a river.
Nico’s Aya speaks of light and evanescence. The blessing of
his Grandmother. Woven DNA patterns. Now it has holes
and no warmth, but the child holds onto it and repeats:
“AYA’s church.” Not knowing that Aya, his grandmother, wove
him into Being. There were many blankets. The plants saw
and knew it was good. There is nobility in weaving the same
blanket over and over. We are impatient to rid ourselves of
time. It takes centuries for Arctic plants to spread and form a
quaking mat, a circumference of clarities.
From Strata by Ewa Chrusciel (published by Emergency Press)
The poem above was inspired by “that famous bog area in New London (N.H.),
...covered by a quaking mat of plants,” according to the poet.
The self-interview was published on nervousbreakdown.com in May 2011. To read the entire interview and poems from Strata visit
www.colby-sawyer.edu/currents/ewa.html.
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