Who Is a Poet by Tadeusz Rozewicz

Who Is a Poet
Tadeusz Rozewicz
Translated by Magnus J. Krynski, Robert A. Maguire

a poet is one who writes verses
and one who does not write verses

a poet is one who throws off fetters
and one who puts fetters on himself

a poet is one who believes
and one who cannot bring himself to believe

a poet is one who has told lies
and one who has been told lies

one who has been inclined to fall
and one who raises himself

a poet is one who tries to leave
and one who cannot leave

SELECTED BY YANYI

This poem is from The Vintage Book of Contemporary World Poetry, edited by J.D. McClatchy, which I picked up on a whim one day as a young teenager from a library cart. I had never felt connected to poetry from school, yet so many of the poems in this collection resonated with me. In the trauma-informed minimalism of Polish poet Tadeusz Różewicz, I found style, tone, and topics that became my first path into writing, which later marked poetry’s permanence in my life.

Over the years I have forgotten and remembered this poem many times, and yet have found my way back to it. The truth of contradictions remains fresh at each rereading, even louder as my lived years mount. As a poet I have made and broken forms, wrestled with my beliefs, and ran away so I could come back. The more I write, the more I understand that I am writing when I am not writing, and that the circumference of the written life expands further and deeper than I once understood. Before I met this poem; before I picked up this anthology; before I was writing anything—my life was informing what would later be formed.

ABOUT YANYI

Yanyi is a writer and critic who has published two poetry collections, Dream of the Divided Field (One World) and The Year of Blue Water (Yale). He teaches poetry at the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers and runs the Asian American Literary Archive. He also writes the newsletter, The Reading.