Józef Czechowicz

Józef Czechowicz (15 March 1903 – 9 September 1939) was an avant-garde Polish poet. Known as a nostalgic, catastrophic author, he was also the leader of the literary avant-garde and bohemians in Lublin. For this visionary poet, verse seemed to be a question of imagination; he would play with word consonances, dreamlike associations, musicality, and create picturesque visions. Czechowicz lived and worked in Lublin before moving to Warsaw; he also died in Lublin, a few days after World War II had started. The poet dedicated many of his poems to her. Apart from Józef, Paweł and Małgorzata had three more children: Janek, Katarzyna and Stanisław.

In 1913 Czechowicz went to a Russian primary school in Lublin and graduated from the First Seven-Form City School in 1917. During the Polish-Soviet War, in 1920, he volunteered to join the Polish Army but later came back home to continue his education. The poet attended the Teacher’s College, the Higher Teacher’s Course in Lublin and completed his education in 1929, graduating from the Institute of Special Pedagogy in Warsaw. but it also led him to face repression.

He also worked as a journalist and an editor of newspapers and magazines based in Lublin. He followed this occupation after he moved to Warsaw in 1933. He belonged to the Polish Teachers' Union and supported many of his writing friends, with both finances and publishing. He would take care of a group of poets who used to live at 9 Dobra St: Henryk Domiński, Wacław Mrozowski and Bronisław Ludwik Michalski. While he was living in Warsaw, he developed friendships with poets such as Czesław Miłosz and Anna Świrszczyńska. He emphasised a striking harmonious musicality in his poetry by using onomatopoeia, phonetic instrumentation, and sonorous neologisms as well as selecting originally harmonious rare assonances and rhymes.

Published works

Collections of poems kamień (1927) dzień jak codzień (1930) ballada z tamtej strony (1932) stare kamienie (1934) w błyskawicy (1934) nic więcej (1936) arkusz poetycki (1938) nuta człowiecza (1939)

Translations A Poem about Lublin (1934, from stare kamienie) translated by Małgorzata Sady and George Hyde (London 2002-2005) Ein Poem über Lublin translated from the English version into German by Paul Alfred Kleinert (Vienna 2020) Some poems have been translated into English and German and have been published in anthologies in those countries. Polnische Poesie des 20. Jahrhunderts (edited and translated by Karl Dedecius, Munich 1964); Polnische Lyrik aus fünf Jahrzehnten (edited by Henryk Bereska and Heinrich Olschowsky, Berlin and Weimar 1975); Sto Wierszy Polskich/ Hundert polnische Gedichte (bilingual edition, edited and translated by Karl Dedecius, Kraków 1982/‘89); Panorama der polnischen Literatur des 20. Jahrhunderts. Poesie (edited and translated by Karl Dedecius, Zürich 1996); Polnische Lyrik aus 100 Jahren (edited by Sergiusz Sterna-Wachowiak, Gifkendorf 1997); Makkaronische Dichtung, Zurich 2013).

Plays Czasu Jutrzennego Jasne Miecze Obraz