From a nonpoetry board, someone looking for a poem:
I wrote down (or so I thought) the name of the author. Zbigniew Herbert. And the name of the poem (or so I thought). ‘Prologue’.
However, it’s not from ‘Prologue’, and a search of Z. Herbert’s collected works doesn’t throw up anything likely.
The only information I have are the following lines:
My Polish soil/ my Polish, Polish air
and, I assume from later in the poem:
those little Polish bilberries/ that have no smell/ and break the heart
(The bilberries might, on the other hand, actually be blueberries. My knowledge of Polish flora is less than extensive.)
Searching Herbert’s collected works, and the works of Czeslaw Milosz (the only other poet I know in any depth) have turned up nothing.
Then later:
I have it written on a small piece of paper stuck inside my pencil box. I can date the piece of paper to around 8 – 10 years ago, by my handwriting and the type of paper.
Given the timing, I’m assuming I either picked it up from an anthology, periodical or English language radio. Less likely: my clumsy translation from Russian (which I do speak) or Polish (which I don’t, but not knowing a language never stopped me yet.)
Can anyone help?
I have only a few of Herbert’s poems in a pair of international anthologies, and neither of them contains anything resembling the lines given here. There’s a “Collected Poems” due out in a couple of months I hope to get, but don’t have any kind of clue right now. Sorry.
Thanks for looking, Hedge.
Can’t help at all I’m afraid but I’m struck by the similarity between the bilberries line and Hugh Macdiarmid’s
The rose of all the world is not for me
I want from my part only the little white rose of Scotland
That smells sharp and sweet
And breaks the heart
maybe there’s a line like this for every troubled nation
shug, good catch.
Michael Pollick on Gazebo thought the poem might be from a collection of war/patriotic poems done by generally non-famous people. But maybe it’s even more generic than that.
Thanks for the heads up.
Thanks so much for asking, Julie. If I ever find out the source/ author, I’ll let you know.
Surok
Hey, Surok. Thanks!