Unterwegs zum «magnetischen Punkt». Ryszard Krynickis dichterische Dialoge mit Paul Celan und Nelly Sachs

Authors:

• Agata Stankowska-Kozera

Abstract

Spatial metaphor of “The Magnetic Point” constitutes a key poeticising formula of the mature work by Ryszard Krynicki. Connected to the New Wave Movement at the moment of his debut, the poet, as the time goes by, is becoming more and more blatant about discarding (or at least decreasing) the social functions of poetry, in favour of the participation in the mystery of the “sacred speech”. He aims at achieving such an act of creation and remaining silent, which would be transparent in the face of what is absolute. The metaphor of the “magnetic point” names the poet’s increasing desire to cross the borders of “contemporaneity”, and even more – to cross the borders of perception – and settle down in the nucleus of sense. It is shown particularly in the return to the tradition of symbolism and the interest in neoclassical diction. Krynicki finds his guides in the Polish lyric poetry. Zbigniew Herbert plays here a very crucial role. German lyrical poets seem equally important – Georg Trakl, Reiner Kunze, Friedrich Hölderlin and Nelly Sachs – whom the Polish poet used to translate. It is from the author of Glühende Rätsel, opened with the incipit [***So kurz ausgeliefert ist der Mensch] where Krynicki took his „magnetic point” metaphor from. The article brings an attempt to describe some of the dialogues and correspondences between Krynicki’s quests and German lyric poetry.