Aleksandra Dańczyszyn and I are talking about the pervasiveness of the spheres of life and literature, about being socially involved, and about “requested parents” and what students request present more than a fresh list of school readings.
Aleksandra Dańczyszyn
A poet, a polarist. The author of 3 poetic books: “Darling” (2020), “Tishert from Bangladesh” (2023), “when will you start singing” (2023). Her poems were translated into respective languages, including French, English and Ukrainian. She represented Poland at the Transpoésie global Poetics Festival in Brussels in 2015.
Paweł Banach: A poet, a teacher and a socially active individual – I would like to talk about these 3 of your roles. Let’s start with the poet, with your last volume, “When you start singing“ published in June 2023. How much was this poesy task for you, and how much was any form of social commitment or... obligation?
Aleksandra Dańczyszyn: Following news and social media entries about the war in Ukraine – especially in its first weeks – I noticed many statements of universal character, specified as would be worth remembering. actual human stories of the victims of this war, her heroes.
It was a shocking experience to realize that in our eyes what we knew at most from the films and stories of planet War II or even about the fight for independency in uprisings... I thought that if I didn't compose it down, it would all slip distant – over time and in quite a few another content – and it couldn't be done again. And I felt that since this content was very crucial to me, possibly it was crucial to others.
I did not want to formulate them into my own poems – I felt something highly inappropriate in that, in the face of the drama set in Ukraine, I would take the position "sitting in a safe place, with coffee, under a blanket, I would make poems about this tragedy." I wanted to make something like a chronicle, specified a "poetic report". I didn't want to be present in this book, due to the fact that it's not my communicative – I wanted to save, keep, pass on. In the full volume there is only 1 minute erstwhile I uncover my own experiences, writing in 1 of the poems “Igor walks around the flat / taking pictures / I cry”, but it was only about a description of the circumstantial situation in which I myself participated, nothing more. Then I started reasoning about composition.
From these first weeks of war, from stories of people and about people – I translated them as I felt them, so there are not always word for word – I have arranged a mosaic. And that's erstwhile I thought these next statements would be called files. On the 1 hand, “acts” as events – an act of goodness, an act of justice, and on the another hand “act” brings to head the composition of drama. In this spirit I arranged these stories thematically and saw the cruelty of Russians, the heroism of Ukrainians, acts of self-sacrifice, mercy, respect, sisterhood...
Indeed, the “act” is usually associated with something lofty, referring to higher values. The war in Ukraine, I think, was indeed a minute that forced us to kind things out, to remind ourselves of them. And here, referring to your volume, these acts “create” any ethical reality again, they kind it out. Although it's only now that I'm referring to the theater.
And that's virtually drama. We watch it with our own eyes.
This is an interesting experience – on the 1 hand, the virtualization of this conflict. During this first period of the war, we watched on the news strips how many people were killed, the same was in the pandemic, we watched how many victims today, how many people were affected. On the another hand, participating in what was happening and happening in Ukraine is easier to realize what was happening in 1939. Man wondered why the planet did not react, and in fact we are in an analogous situation. And now we have the same challenge.
Reading the literature of planet War II, I always imagined that I would be on the side of helping Jews – I can't imagine that I could have acted differently!
They say we know as much about each another as we've been tested, but I disagree. If you have certain issues of thought out, certain values, you will simply follow these values. due to the fact that you live it. due to the fact that you know yourself well.
After the war started, there was a feeling that something had to be done. I joined the Facebook support group – there was a willingness to take refugees from Ukraine home. 1 night, news came out of the old man about the bullets and his over fifty-year-old son. They came to us, stayed the night and went on into the world. Later we had a girl who was by choice a Muslim. She turned out to be able to knit and crochet, so she made a variety of toys that I then sold on her Facebook page. I'm grateful to everyone who bought them at the time. For this girl, it was crucial and helpful not only for material reasons.
