Adam Zagajewski, Dies Aged 75

Hello Gentle Reader,

Throughout the 20th Century, Poland had produced some of the most remarkable poets of recent contemporary memory, such as the late: Zbigniew Herbert, Czesław Miłosz, and Wisława Szymborska. Each of these poets were different in form, theme, preoccupation, and delivery. Wisława Szymborska for example, charmed and enchanted the literary world with her graceful, penetrating and ceaselessly curious poems. With a touch of the light and heartfelt the poems are delivered in the simplest form, which betrayed the subverse manner in which they commented on the extraordinary wonders of the world. Who knew a poem about an onion, could betray such existential ponderings? In contrast the quiet graceful power exhibited by Szymborska, Czesław Miłosz maintained the reputation as one of the most intellectually and political potent poets of his generation. Miłosz eschewed accessibility in favour of esotericism; a reported point of pride that only the astute, scholarly, and initiated would be able to ponder his poetry, which comes into explicit contrast to Wisława Szymborska, whose deceptive simplicity pondered greater depths. Despite the esoteric nature of his poetry, Czesław Miłosz was a poet of grand greatness. A crown that decorated his mantel with ease. It comes as no surprise that both, Czesław Miłosz and Wisława Szymborska won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Despite the eclipsing shadows that would certainly engulf his literary career, Adam Zagajewski wrote and published, and in his right rivaled the eclipsing celestial literary figures of Czesław Miłosz and Wisława Szymborska; not by taking and smearing their iconic status, but by writing, publishing and being read, until he to was considered a poet in his own right, on his own merit, in his own vein.

If Adam Zagajewski were to be compared to either of the previously mentioned, he would fall closer to poetic kinship with Czesław Miłosz. Zagajewski was a voyager poet, who took peculiar interest towards the poetry of historic and cosmic, continually changing, adapting, evolving in fluidity, neglecting in turn any notion of static sediment. While being an associate of Poland’s ‘New Wave,’ of poetry during the 60’s and 70’s, Adam Zagajewski’s poetry refuted, resented and eschewed the notion that poetic language needs to be grand, pompous, and praising in ceremonious conceit the great work of communism. Rather the New Wave Poetry movement sought to describe with accurate, plain, and simple language the reflections of reality as it was. A poetic record and testament of the times; it should come as no surprise that the censors and communist official stance was not approving. By the mid 70’s Adam Zagajewski’s poetry was banned from publication and censored when approved. He signed a declaration opposing the communist falsities, which would amend Poland’s constitution, forcing him into exile in Paris until the 21st Century.

Even in exile, however, Adam Zagajewski continued to publish his poetry, remaining a staunch advocate for the poetic literary realism of the collective emotions of his homeland, who once again was burned with he yoke of ideological fanaticism, bolstered by the subjugation of language to both serve political purposes, and subvert true communication and freedom of thought. The later years of his career remained true to his form, one founded on staunch collective pondering, with an acute eye and scrutiny to provided towards history, which cannot be seen as pastoral paradise lost, but waking memory and reminder of what was, in comparison to the uncertain possibilities and consequences that the future holds. Either way the world erodes, bit by bit, changing or mutilated beyond conceivable repair.

As a poet, Adam Zagajewski was often rumored to being the final member of the Polish Poets to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature, where he would join Czesław Miłosz, and Wisława Szymborska. He appeared to have the credentials, in the forms of literary merit, and poetry as political opposition and dissidence. Zagajewski was a repeat frontrunner for international poetry awards and was the winner of the 2004 Neustadt International Prize for Literature. Yet, sadly Adam Grajewski died March 21st of 2021, at the age of 75, without the Nobel Prize for Literature. Regardless, he stands in the Pantheon of Polish Poetry alongside his predecessors, as well as all the up and commers who are bound to grace the international literary stage in years to come.

Rest in Peace, Adam Zagajewski

Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
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M. Mary

Nawal El Saadawi, Dies Aged 89

 
Hello Gentle Reader,  

The term feminist has become increasingly contorted, twisted and disfigured as of late. Its overarching term embraces the good, while being pelted with the insults of its misappropriation. Perhaps in the western world, feminism has begun to being viewed and perceived with the lens of invalidity and a certain outdated sense of quality, which is now chalked up to the fervour zealotry of pettifogging myopia. As if in some unfortunate manner, feminism had completely lost its fighting spirit, its ideals, or its direction. Now placed into a position of venomous vitriol which is spat at anything or anyone who dares to provide a contrary argument to their faux pearl perspectives. Consider it - if you will - yet another milestone in the campaign of overt political correctness and its mutilating and corrosive touch, as it advocates for further petulance and outcries leading to the now designated term: 'Cancel Culture,' - as the defining ultimate concept, to what would otherwise be called a temper tantrum. Surely any feminist of previous generations looks at this demagogue militia of youth, with a perturbed disgust. How they lost not only their principle standings, but who have become iconoclasts of sensibility and human rights.

Then there is the light in the tunnel, who became firebrand freethinkers, who balance feminism with human rights, often swaying to the later in their overall theories of social egalitarianism. Such people as, Nawal El Saadawi, the Egyptian Doctor, writer and feminist activist. There was no doubt, that Nawal El Saadawi was a feminist - she wore the term with exclusive dignitary honour - but she fought for human rights as well, the very basic human rights, which were disagreeably denied to girls and women of her homeland Egypt, and are perhaps still denied on some form of outdated principle.

In her childhood, Nawal El Saadawi was to be married off, but she refused with her mother standing by her side on the refusal. She also stamped her feet at her grandmother in direct opposition, when her grandmother referred to girls as a blight, and propagated the misguided notion that boys were more worthy of the family. At the age of six, however, Nawal El Saadawi was subjected to the form of female genital mutilation; a practice that she denoted as torturous and barbaric and advocated against for the remainder of her life. Despite the perspectives held, that woman was of no consequence and had little value; Nawal El Saadawi's education was also promoted and encouraged by her family. At the age of thirteen she would write her first novel and would later become a doctor in the mid-fifties, specializing soon after in psychiatry. She would become the director of public health in the Egyptian government, but was later dismissed in the early seventies, after publishing: "Women and Sex," which documented, advocated against, and opposed female genital mutilation.

In the mid-seventies, she published "Woman at Point Zero," an account of a woman on death row in prison that Saadawi had met. By the late seventies, Saadawi once again published another novel "The Hidden Face of Eve," a recount of her time as a doctor in a small village, which recorded the honour killings, prostitution and abuse women suffered at the hands of their husbands. Critics assaulted the novel with vulture’s glee. They accused the novel of perpetuating stereotypes of Arabic women, and a slanderous smear campaign.

By the early eighties Nawal El Saadawi was rounded up as a dissident by the then President Anwar Sadat. She was imprisoned for three months, and wrote her memoirs on toilet paper, with an eyebrow pencil smuggled in by a sex worker. After President Sadat's assassination, Saadawi was released, but her work was either censored or banned from publications. Through continued death threats for religious fundamentalists and extremists, she was forced to leave Egypt for exile in the United States. Yet, even in exile, Saadawi continued to leverage criticism at all oppositional and oppressional forces at work. She decried revealing clothing and makeup, in the same fashion she opposed the veil, which irritated feminists, who selectively challenged such matters.

Throughout her life, Nawal El Saadawi, was a adamant fighter against oppressive forces, be it they are masculine or arbitrary in any manner. She was committed to truth as an ideal, as a perspective that equates justice. Anything else would never meet the mark. It is Saadawi's commitment to truth which was so startling and provides testament to her character, both literary and politically. This devotion could never be devalued as anything but. Though she never won the Nobel Prize for Literature, she was often considered a strong contender for the prize, especially after the 2018 Scandal which saw the prize postponed. Regardless, Nawal El Saadawi blazed a trail that other women of Egypt and elsewhere would need to foster, support, and continue to advocate for. Bringing feminism back to its rudimentary roots, as a movement that fights for egalitarian values, not the needless battle of myopic arguments.

Nawal El Saadawi died at the age of 89.

Rest in Peace, Nawal El Saadawi.

Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read

M. Mary

Philippe Jaccottet, dies Aged 95

Hello Gentle Reader,

The French language is riddled with some of the greatest writers, thinkers, and cultural cultivators. From Voltaire of the Enlightenment; to George Sand of the Romantics; to the revolutionary Charles Baudelaire; Marcel Proust whose genius was only recognized after his death; to the Twentieth Century and beyond, riddled with its extraordinary writers, poets and philosophers, such as: Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Francis Ponge, Michel Foucault, Marguerite Duras, Yves Bonnefoy, and Annie Ernaux. Among them resides the recently deceased nonagrian Philippe Jaccottet. The Swiss French language poet was one of the titans of modern Francophone Literature and poetry. Through a literary career that spanned more than five decades, Jaccottet remained a constant poetic voice in the French literary canon. His poetry refused the proliferation and propagation of poetic noise, as continued stream of a hyper-monologue to mimic the image and information cacophony of the burgeoning world in the Information Age. He shunned the notion of hermetic poetic concepts, which turned poetry into a cipher, leaving readers baffled and bewildered. No, Jacoettet practiced poetry as an act of crystalline transparency, the ability to get intimate and close with the subjects, and all subsequent observations, thoughts and feelings associated with it. One may think his obsessive preoccupation with the immediacy of the landscape and nature, coupled with his straightforward poetry, made him ‘just,’ a nature poet. This is a superficial perspective with reasonable critical analysis. Nature may be a subject, but his poetry in its simple use of language perceives with a clarity and depth that reaches far into the heart of the matter, which just happens to be reflected in the natural and obstructed landscape he observed. Throughout his poetic career, the language employed by Philippe Jaccottet, became increasingly sparse in form. Critics noted his brief snapshots were reminiscent of the Japanese haiku style; continually seeking to grasp in the simplest form of language, the ephemeral and transcending reality that engulfs and surrounds. Philippe Jaccottet is one of the few living writers (upon its initial publication) to be included in the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, which includes: Nobel Laurates Saint-John Perse and Andrew Gide; Milan Kundera, Nathalie Sarraute and Eugene Ionesco. Beyond being one of the most accomplished titans of French language poetry, Philippe Jaccottet was a prolific literary critic, and adamant translator of German language poets into French.

Philippe Jaccottet Died February 24^th 2021.

Rest in Peace, Philippe Jaccottet.

Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read

M. Mary