I missed National Poetry Day, I was ill, a bit of a couch back to be honest, I was reading some stuff about Lech Walesa in the early eighties and the main demands of the Solidarnosc movement for a Free Trade Union, one of them was a percentage of access to the state controlled media, because all the work of the solidarity movement was reported by the state – through the eyes of the state, who, if not the enemy, were certainly an adversary. Anyhow, I went down the rabbit hole and looked for contemporary Polish writers and found this poem, Uvar was known to Grass and Milosz – I would like to acknowledge the translator, but evidence suggests, Grass helped, Uvar could write in English, it is possible an English journalist gave aid. Anyhow, I though it had echoes of what is going on right here – right now.    

 

The impossibility of knowing if they will get a potato to eat

and other unmentionables in our so called democracy;

 

A long time ago our street had one TV

and one TV station – one film maker,

one newscaster, one weatherman,

one puppeteer with several puppets.

Everything was black and white,

easy to understand and a little better

than the corners of our thoroughfares

and the bamboozling cacophony that struck

our ears in a confusing jumble From

the loudhailers from the soapboxes –

 

That was before I was born of course.

I grew up with four TV channels,

four weathermen, four quiz hosts,

You get the gist…

 

Now I am old, I have eighty four

Channels to choose from. That’s 84

film makers, 84 weathermen, 84 news

correspondents, one puppeteer,

as many and as much celebrities

and DJs and sex and sport as I can

point a remote control at

 

and yet somehow it feels like the city

has one lone speaker in the main square

with one single voice outlining

the current situation, that we should

maintain the presiding political ideology:

But our schools are finding it impossible

to afford paper for our children,

our water companies are finding

it impossible to clean the shit

from our rivers, the sheer impossibility

of a train running on time, the hazard

of being able to heat our homes,

the precariousness of way too many

of our kids to find a potato for tea.

I tip my ear to the lone speaker

in the city centre making no sense

out of nonsense, until I’m quaking

with rage, I pull the plug out

and shout; It Doesn’t have to be

like that! And I shout loud,

but in contrast to the lone state

speaker, my voice is not heard.

 

Uvar Bighutzingdynia