{"id":6349,"date":"2019-03-04T10:39:28","date_gmt":"2019-03-04T10:39:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/?p=6349"},"modified":"2019-03-04T10:39:29","modified_gmt":"2019-03-04T10:39:29","slug":"polish-pens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/?p=6349","title":{"rendered":"Polish Pens"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
l to r: Ursula Phillips, Maria Jastrz\u0119bska and Anna Blasiak<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

As\never, the dames jumped at the chance to go and find out about a Polish author little\nknown in this country and her modern successors \u2013 not least because one of her\nsuccessors is poet and translator Maria Jastrz\u0119bska, friend of damesnet<\/strong> and subject of\nour first Wiki entry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

‘Polish Women Writers Past and Present: Enthusiasts of the 1840s and Today’ was organised as part of Lambeth\u2019s LGBT+ History Month to celebrate 200 years since the birth of Narcyza \u017dmichowska, the first woman in Poland to write about the need for independence and education for women. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Distinguished translator Ursula Phillips introduced\nher translation of \u017dmichowska\u2019s 1846 novel The\nHeathen<\/em>. A work of startling emotional power, it is a book that repays\nclose reading. Ostensibly the story of an affair between a younger man and an\nolder, sophisticated and aristocratic woman, critics and literary historians\nare now inclined to believe that it is in fact a disguised account of a\nsame-sex relationship, inspired by \u017dmichowska\u2019s own intense \u2013 but doomed \u2013\nfriendship with Paulina Zbyszewska. This would put it in the tradition of works\nthat conceal a queer relationship in plain sight, such as Noel Coward\u2019s Brief Encounter<\/em>, which explores the pain\nof a forbidden love, and, on a more playful note, The Importance of Being Earnest<\/em>, in which \u2018Bunburying\u2019 (excusing\noneself from tiresome social obligations on the pretext of visiting an ailing\nfriend) may actually mean going off to a same-sex tryst. The passage Ursula\nPhillips quoted from the book, describing the young hero Benjamin, undoubtedly\nconjures up the image of a young woman instead: \u2018\u2026 your white neck, lovingly\nturned on the potter\u2019s wheel, joined in a marvellous sweep your uncovered\nshoulders; your young breast, the colour of marble yet burning hot, fluttering\nfrom your quickening breath\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the discussion that followed, it became clear how\nmuch \u017dmichowska is honoured in her own country. In the mid 1840s, she was at\nthe centre of a progressive sisterhood of women known as the Enthusiasts; current\nPolish feminists regard her as their mother. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Then to a modern novel: Jastrz\u0119bska\u2019s newly published The True\nStory of Cowboy Hat and Ing\u00e9nue<\/em>. Introducing it, Jastrz\u0119bska said she had always found the current\nnovel form not up to the task of encompassing women\u2019s experience. Cowboy Hat is\ntherefore a hybrid form of prose and poetry, a picaresque quest, with a truly\nfilmic quality, through extreme landscapes populated by outcasts and survivors.\nThe fragments of nature observed, of acts variously violent and tender, imprint\nthemselves on the memory. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally to poetry, and Anna Blasiak\u2019s forthcoming collection, which is accompanied by photographs by Lisa Kalloo. Jastrz\u0119bska has translated Blasiak\u2019s poems, so Blasiak read several poems in Polish, and Jastrz\u0119bska read her translations of them. Listening to poetry in a language you don\u2019t understand is a surprisingly pleasurable experience. Freed from any possibility of interpretation, the mind simply focuses on the rhythm, the quality of the sound and the expressiveness of the voice. As poets, Jastrz\u0119bska and Blasiak clearly recognise the importance of these non-verbal elements, and just sitting still and listening intently \u2013 whether to the Polish or the English \u2013 was an enriching experience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It seemed at times scarcely believable that, in this straitened and suspicious period of our national history, a cash-strapped local authority could still be commemorating and celebrating the creativity of minority voices. A shaft of light in the darkness: thank you, ladies \u2013 and Lambeth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Celebrating the creativity of minority voices<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":6352,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[68,58,126,55],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6349"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6349"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6367,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6349\/revisions\/6367"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}