Half Day Moon Press is very pleased to announce the release of Grzegorz Wroblewski's new digital chapbook The Life of a Tenement House. It houses poems newly translated from the original Polish by Adam Zdrodowski and Ben Borek.
Commenting on Wroblewski's work of "awe and compassion" for the undertrodden, Marcus Silcock, author of The Green Monk, writes:
"The tenement house was meant to house the influx of urban workers after the Industrial Revolution. It was a quick solution for the poor and desperate. We are piling on top of each other. More and more of us. These poems give voice to the forgotten. Whether it is the lonely Alsatians in the dog shelter, where “you can’t just visit them / for a little while. / The old Alsatians would think I was a grim carrier / of pork bones." Or "The man who never ate tomatoes / looked like a postman or a used / car seller." Or the woman who "throws three old bones into the hole. / Afterwards, her fourth or fifth / Newfoundland / she's had in a row does the same / with her as she once did with the first.” In The Life of a Tenement House, Wróblewski continues his poetics of awe and compassion. This is poetry of our doomed and hopeful humanity trying to make the most of it. It is sharply honest and full of wit."
Another colorful projection of "our doomed and hopeful humanity" can be found in the poem "Epicentre", which ripples out to as far as you are sitting:
EPICENTRE
My transparency, and yours.
The pastry chefs are soaking
in blood!
(The definition of the working class
is back). After all
I'm only studying caterpillars.
And you'll pay for it after power
is seized. Surely you must be
a supporter?
Of what? How much, what for
and for whom?
Of the revolution! Dead souls...
Is it at least
global?
If we really must
melt down spoons
and family heirlooms...
Of course it's global.