Wyobraźniowe przewroty we współczesnej poezji polskiej
Imagination Revolutions in Contemporary Polish Poetry

Adam Leszkiewicz’s "Apocalypse of the Dog" and Damian Kowal’s "Songs" as Metaphorical Contestation

Author(s): Przemysław Koniuszy
Subject(s): Studies of Literature, Sociology, Polish Literature, Philology, Theory of Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: poetics of protest; contemporary Polish poetry; contestation in poetry; lyrical subject; philosophy and poetry; lyrical experience
Summary/Abstract: The article presents, through the analysis of two volumes of poetry ("Apocalypse of the Dog" by Adam Leszkiewicz and Songs by Damian Kowal), the specificity of the protest, which, in the author’s opinion, is an obligatory modality of the lyrical persona in contemporary Polish poetry. In the first case, the rebellious fierceness of the subject is expressed when it realizes that it is influenced by dehumanizing ideology and unspecified power as a force that deprives it of the right to live in a community of equal beings. The persona constructed by Leszkiewicz is sensitive to practices that authoritatively suspend the freedom to construct a private image of the world and, in line with her predisposition, seeks ways to emancipate consciousness. "Apocalypse of the Dog" turns out to be an account of the subject taking his private convictions in brackets and becoming a sovereign protester in a world previously turned to rubble. In Kowal’s "Songs", however, the actions of lyrical personas are inspired by the specificity of ambient music. Their statements are penetrated by the background of everyday life, which influences their emotions and completely absorbs thoughts, acting oppressively on them. In "Songs", the subject, in order to maintain his presence, must make offensive protest gestures, therefore his existence always betrays the contesting position, regardless of whether it is intentional (declaratively confirmed) or unconscious. Here, the poetic contestation is the result of the self-knowledge of a man realizing the scale of pressure exerted on him.

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