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Essays, Manifestos, Statements, Speeches, Maxims, Epistles, Diaristic Jottings, Narratives, Natural histories, Poems, Plays, Performances, Ramblings, Revelations, and all such ephemera as may appear necessary to bring society into a slight tremolo of confusion and fright at least.

White Magic and Other Poems

Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński

Translated from the Polish with an Introduction by Bill Johnston

A Bilingual Edition

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Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński (1921–1944), born in Warsaw, began writing poetry at an early age. He graduated from school just a few months before World War II broke out and the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939. While studying literature at the underground university, he met Barbara Drapczyńska, whom he married in 1942. His beautiful love poems to her make up an important part of his writings.

In 1943, he joined the Polish Resistance, and remained on the front lines despite ill health. He died fighting in the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. A few days later, his wife, without knowing of her husband’s death, also was killed.

The poet’s mother preserved his manuscripts, and in 1961 they were published for the first time, expanding the legend of Baczyński, who is now recognized as the greatest Polish poet of his generation.

Bill Johnston’s translation reveals this poet’s importance.

Book Review(s)

AMERICAN POET, no. 31 (Fall 2006)

by Journal Editor(s)

The Polish poet Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński died young. Still, by the age of twenty-four, he produced over one thousand pages of poetry. This new selection, containing forty-five poems, chronicles the brief, poetic life of a poet greatly involved in the Polish resistance to Germany throughout World War II. Riddled with images of struggle and oppression, Baczyński’s poems propel the poetry of witness into cavernous meditations on history, time, and catastrophism: “The night rains on the windows, gathering power; / Blinded like me, the wind kneels at our home. / Who stole form us this carefree time of ours. Though Baczyński mainly wrote in free verse, translator Bill Johnston tries to remain true to the poet’s innovative half rhyme and surrealistic imagery, making Baczyński’s American debut a stimulating one.

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