11
LETTER TO AN AUTHOR
Dear Zbigniew Herbert,
I first encountered your work last year, when my english assignment was to choose a single poem from the 800 pages of poems regarding a variety of different topics such as the Holocaust, and to do minimal research on the poet. As I was taking out the assigned book, Against Forgetting by Caroline Forche, the heavy book slipped out of my hands and fell face down on the floor. I picked it up and examined the page it had fallen on. The first poem that caught my eye was one of yours titled, “What I Saw.” I decided to mark the page with a yellow post-it and move on for the time being. I sat down on my sofa and decided to quickly skim through each poem; I really wanted this project to be meaningful. A few hours later, my thick book was creased, and there were at least a hundred little stubs of ripped post-its sticking out from every other page. I read through each marked poem, and the poem I ended up choosing happened to be the very same poem that caught my eye when I picked up the book off of the floor.
At first glance, I did not think much of you, thinking that you were but a typical Polish writer. However, upon a quick Google search, I learned that you were not so. You must have lived through a difficult childhood, as you grew up in nazi-occupied Poland during World War II. Despite the risk of being locked up in a cell for fighting against Nazism (and later on communism), it’s amazing how you were not afraid to stand up for what you believed in. This is truly inspiring to me, as I often have trouble getting my voice heard in my classes. You were not persecuted, as you were not a Jew; you could have easily led a safe, protected life, and even been the persecutor. What gave you the strength and motivation to risk your life to help others who were in dire need?
What caught my eye about your poem was the way it leaves a powerful impact on the reader without bluntly stating what you want to convey. Your haunting repetition of “I saw it/ I saw it” still rings in my head. The complex comparison between the real and the fake of the “prophets” and “frauds” makes this all the more gruesome. Each word evokes a visceral reaction of shock and pain, but within it, there is beauty in your language. The way you use ordinary objects to symbolize the darker truth is truly powerful. In this poem, what really stood out to me was your use of the millions of deaths during the war as mere props of a gruesome play: “After clearing away the dead props / slowly / raise / the blood-drenched curtain.” How were you able to find a connection of the crimson cloth marking the end of a theater production, to the curtain marked by the blood of millions? Oh, I wish that I could understand the Polish language; I can’t imagine how much more impactful it would be to read this poem exactly the way it was written.