The True Poets Are Born Once in Many Years - Agnieszka Wolny-Hamkało talks to Ewa Sonnenberg

Have you ever felt discriminated or favoured on account of your sex?

Favouring or discriminating are part of the reality with which I’ve always been at odds. It is something that touches me in a way, but it doesn’t have a significant influence on what I’m doing. And you may be discriminated not only because you are a woman, there are many other reasons. It depends on a caprice and humour of a certain group of people. You shouldn’t take caprices seriously. Maybe a better question is how I feel about myself as a woman. And it’s been different. There were times when I rebelled against my womanhood. I was a tomboy then. I dressed in suits, put on ties, ascots, cufflinks, men’s shoes and so on. I discovered my womanhood after thirty. It was on one beautiful day in Paris. I discovered it and I was delighted in it. I concluded that being a woman is a wonderful adventure and a unique way of experiencing the world, a recipe for lifestyle and building your own image. The truth is that every woman has her own world, puzzling, mysterious, unpredictable, crazy, eccentric. Men are as if devoid of their own world, or a man’s world is much poorer than a woman’s.

Did you feel that you must prove something, that you must work harder than a man so that people treat you seriously?

I’ve never wanted to prove anything, maybe apart from one thing: that sensitivity and delicacy do make sense in today’s complicated and brutal world. Or maybe that one needs poetry, that poetry is still important. Even if only one man is going to read what we have written. Work has always absorbed me. I love working. After all, a genius is said to be made of 90 percent of hard work and 10 percent of talent. Maybe this propensity for hard work makes more manlike in a way. Because I’ve always put what I do in the first place. But it’s true that man and woman do not have equal chances. Men are judged by what they do, and women… [laughter], ok, I’ll say it, by how they look. What vexes me most is when after a poetry reading someone comes up to me and says, you look beautiful, and doesn’t say a word about my poems. Well, I would have some doubts about my looks, but as for my poems, I’d venture to say that they are the most beautiful models on a catwalk. And coming back to the being-treated-seriously-thing, at times it’s probably better not to be treated seriously. “Not seriously” includes the room for making sweet mistakes, follies and crazy things. I don’t care about being treated seriously. This is a great responsibility. And my poems live their own lives, whether serious or not it’s not up to me judge.

How do you feel as a woman poet in the environment dominated by men?

Well, like fish in water. The company of men is so exciting. You shouldn’t forget that I used to be a tomboy, and tomboys love to play football with boys. As a woman I feel like the right person in the right place doing the right things.

If you were to take a penname, for instance, in order to take to literary criticism, would it be a male or a female name?

At a certain period of my life I did have a pseudonym – Sonia Berg. She was an eccentric girl, she loved art, theatre and kemp, she collected umbrellas, crocodiles and gloves. If I were to take to literary criticism, I would use as a pseudo the name of an ancient critic – Zoil. I’ve already used it by the way. And in my criticism I would be as cruel as he was. I think it’s good that I’m not a critic [laughter]. For I can’t stand superficiality in poems, the fast food stylistics, verbosity, the lack of sensitivity, and there is, unfortunately, more and more of it in poetry.

Would your literary “career” take a different path if you were a man?

Literary career walks its own ways. The ways that are hard to understand and grasp. The ways that in a certain moment miss writing itself. For writing, creating takes place somewhere off the beaten track, on the periphery, not in the spotlight. True writing needs a lot of free space, free and independent. Does being a woman make the so-called career more difficult? Writing, creating, it is a very difficult way. Someone who makes the decision to become an artist needs to realise this. First, it’s a great sacrifice; secondly, it’s great responsibility for words, texts; thirdly, it’s enormous titanic work. Your whole life needs to be subordinated to art, this requires not only talent but also strong character. And there is also this damned sensitivity, which we tame all life long. This gives a dizzying mixture not everyone can handle. If I were a man, I guess I would not write. I’d become a pilot, a sailor or a stuntman. I’d have a wife and lots of kids [laughter].

What’s happened to the term “female poetry”? What does it mean to you? What is it commonly associated with?

“Female poetry” as something worse and separate? This is revolting and unfair. Poetry is poetry, and it’s either good or bad. This division is an artificial product of cultural stereotypes which still linger in some people’s thinking. I was called once “the most male among female poets,” funny expression. But maybe it is an apt description of my sharp and rebellious poems.

I’ve heard the following opinions, “she’s good because she writes like a guy.” Could you comment on that?

Because sometimes I do write like a guy. Like a tough guy who is laughing through tears. Like a divine son-of-a-bitch who brings himself to make a gesture of truth. Like a nonchalant dandy who builds his lonely castle out of the words. Seriously speaking, I’ve always wanted to distance myself form the problem of gender, to be as if above it. Why should we be determined by our gender. After all each of us has something of man and something of woman. It depends on circumstances which part becomes revealed. I like the idea of hermaphrodite. Some sort of unity between what is male and what is female. Fullness.

Can marriage, establishing a family, influence somehow the creative work of a female poet?

I believe in the relationships that give you wings. I believe that being together may be inspiring. I believe that one day I can meet somebody who will be able to radically alter my life. To discover new areas of sensitivity lying ahead of us and a new perspective of feeling. Can you be inspired between an omelette and a cutlet, between a frying pan and a pot? I did have my doubts but now I know that poems come on their own no matter what the circumstances are. And even these pans and pots will not stop the inner drive to write. Your own place in the world matters. The place where the desk is and the window overlooking a meadow. For me, desk is almost sacred. Wherever I go I start organizing my place with the desk. My desk contains my whole world. Show me your desk and I’ll tell you who you are.

Can you comment on the stereotype that one needs to be lonely and unhappy in order to write good poems.

Is the stereotype that one needs to be lonely and unhappy really a stereotype. Maybe it is some kind of existential truth. Or a tradition rooted in Polish romanticism. But does suffering for millions make any sense in our times? Solitude, yes, but solitude which each day becomes more beautiful and richer. Solitude improves sensitivity and watchfulness, the features that are indispensable while writing. But you must know how to experience solitude. You must educate it, teach it calmness, wisdom and patience. Solitude is essential. When you are creating, this is the only thing that keeps you company. Solitude while alone, solitude in a crowd. I like my solitude, I attend to it, I accept the conditions it dictates to me, solitude is demanding, sometimes even ruthless. Creating is building a hermitage around oneself. Only words or gestures of nature may enter there. We come there everyday in order to discover anew ourselves and the world. Solitude means for me the presence of somebody Inconceivable and Great.

Would you be able to tell whether a poem has been written by a man or by a woman?

My own poems are hard to tell because I write both in male and female gender. I treat gender as a stylistic device. There are strong subjects which sound better in male gender. And there are subjects which sound more beautiful and lyrical in female gender. I like Artur Rimbaud’s maxim, “I is somebody else.” In my poem, “I” may be a woman, or e a man, a child, or an aged person, madman, a beggar, a sage. I also like Eliot’s attitude, who treated writing like acting. When I write I play different roles, and it doesn’t matter that I’m a woman. In my poems I am a tender lover, romantic madman, unpredictable charlatan, amusing clown, or a cold sage.

Why do you think there are in Poland over half a hundred of “recognised” male poets of the younger generation and only a few women. Could it be because of men’s wallop/ambition/marketing, or may be because they are granted the writing talent more often? Or maybe they want to write or publish more?

Not the quantity but the quality matters, doesn’t it? I’ve always been terrified by the quantity. The number of written words. The gigantic number of poetry volumes that come to “Studium.” I look then plaintively at forests. Poetic talent is something exceptional. The true poets are born once in many years.