Robert Peake

In “Biology Teacher,” Zbigniew Herbert speaks about the unspeakable: the murder of his childhood biology teacher. He is one of a generation of poets attempting to come to terms with survivor guilt after the atrocities committed in their native Poland during its occupation by the Nazis. Herbert addresses a subject of both great generational and personal difficulty with remarkable sensitivity and care. In this poem, just as in another, perhaps more famous poem entitled “Five Men,” Herbert focuses not on the atrocity of killing, but the humanity of those killed.

His poetic tactics follow two lines: detail and syntax. First, the very careful selection of detail draws out an understanding of the victims’ personality and humanity. Second, the syntax allows these unique details to be revealed in interesting ways, building up to poignant observations about the sanctity of life. In “Biology Teacher,” it is Herbert’s boyhood delights at the gross-yet-fascinating subject of biology that tell us so much about the teacher who introduced him to this world. Through careful detail and syntax, we discover what the biology teacher really taught Herbert: a relationship to the natural world involving great care, tenderness, and even respect—punctuated by moments of delight.

Had a great trip down to the South coast, the highlight being a sword fight with a four-year-old on the bowling green of Carisbrooke Castle. We crossed the Solent in the kind of gale that threatened the Fastnet Race. Unfortunately, that meant we couldn’t take the hovercraft—but the fast catamaran only pitched and rolled during the slow going in and out of port. Good thing, too—Val and I were stuffed on two enormous portions (“Those are the mediums?!”) of fish & chips as well as tea and Turkish delight.

I have been reading Zbigniew Herbert on the train, trying to get past the translation. Apart from stunning poems like “Five Men” and “The Pebble,” most of the poems I have read so far smack of romantic Slavic intillectualism and an out-of-tune surrealism. I wonder if his work focuses more on language and lyric device to make what seem like generalizations come alive in new (linguistic) ways. In any case, it is a far cry from Adam Zagajewski, whose poems in Mysticism For Beginners are tight and self-contained—a kind of Eastern European Ted Koozer with a deeper connection to history and a more philosophical bent. Still, I’m ploughing through Herbert poems by the hundreds, hoping to get more inside this poet, hoping to read beyond the language barrier and into the mind of the man that has written poems that make my jaw drop open with their fierce, unflinching gaze.

Meanwhile, it is evident that since I was here three years ago, Polish people have immigrated to the UK in great numbers. There are now Polish grocers and restaurants just down the street. On the tube today, young Poles were poring over a glossy Polish-language magazine sporting the latest PC gaming equipment and games. According to Czeslaw Milosz, the Polish that contemporary poets employ is only nominally different from its medieval counterpart—making their poetic tradition vastly more accessible and vibrant than our own. (Imagine if Chaucer and Shakespeare wrote in English-as-we-know-it.)