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PARTISAN REVIEW
his work seems to send us. His poetry has recently been undergoing a
rapid critical reevaluation, and it has been a model for many younger
Polish (and American) poets, as numerous poems dedicated to his mem–
ory attest. More importantly, since Wat's death no less than six new
volumes of his work have been brought out by Polish emigre publishers.
The first to appear was the volume of his collected poems, composed by
Wat himself in a reversed chronological order and featuring numerous
poems from his late phase; this was followed by the original version of
My Century,
two huge volumes of Wat's recorded conversations with
Czeslaw Milosz; finally, three volumes of Wat's collected prose came
out, containing pieces that, for the most part, were previously unknown.
In the United States, Wat was represented, until very recently, by a
single, slim collection,
Mediterranean Poems,
translated by Milosz and
published by Ardis Press in 1977. The translations included there, now
greatly rewritten and complemented with twenty-one new titles
translated jointly by Milosz and Leonard Nathan, form the bulk of
With
the Skin.
Its publication was preceded by the appearance of
My Century
in English translation - Wat's "spoken memoir," something between a
book-length interview and an enormous monologue spurred by incisive
questions from Milosz. The dedication with which Milosz over the years
has promoted the oeuvre of his older friend and fellow poet in both
Polish and American literary circles deserves a special note here, even
more so as these two poets' respective styles differ so much: this is indeed
a striking example of the attraction of opposites.
In the highly illuminating dialogue on Wat, provided by the trans–
lators as a sort of supplement to the poems themselves, Milosz says that
Wat could be compared to Saul Bellow's hero, Mr. Samrnler, if
Mr.
Sammler wrote poetry. But thinking of Wat, another literary character
can't help but come to mind: Marsyas, the protagonist of "Apollo and
Marsyas," a poem by another eminent contemporary Polish author,
Zbigniew Herbert. For Herbert, the real duel between the lyre-playing
god Apollo and the flutist-shepherd Marsyas starts
qfter
their musical duel,
as a result of which Marsyas was flayed. Apollo, who won the first
round, is defeated in the second: what defeats him is Marsyas's howl of
unbearable pain that turns a nightingale into stone and makes a tree turn
gray-haired. Nature understands real suffering better than the corrupt
judges do.
Wat, a twentieth-century Marsyas, suffered unbearable pain for
about fifteen years. It began with a fateful stroke he had as a consequence
of a particularly heated meeting of the Polish Writers' Union in Warsaw
in 1953. Direct physical causes aside, Wat also interpreted his affiiction as
a providential punishment for his prewar flirtation with communism.
It
is
fascinating to trace this line of reasoning in his "spoken memoir" as well
