Author: Marcin Cecko
Translation & recitation: Anna Kerth
am awaiting enlightenment in the kitchen
am awaiting enlightenment in the kitchen
it's good
slowly the first animals are coming out
ants
it's good
the flood
the water spilled
it's good
the sign
my pen stopped writing
someone has their birthday
someone walked in on the truth
someone would kill himself while reading my book
I
am awaiting enlightenment in the kitchen
am awaiting enlightenment in the kitchen
free not to eat free not to look to listen not free
free to wait wait to be free
better leave it's hot in here
am connecting
you've got a car then back off
take my poster touch and sign
there's an inbox somewhere here
am connecting now
am awaiting enlightenment in the kitchen
am awaiting enlightenment in the kitchen
Marcin Cecko, born 1981. Poet, dramatist, performer, photographer. Co-author of the Neolinguistic Manifesto. He has published the poetry books: Rozbiorek, Pląsy, Mów. He lives in Warsaw. Lately occupied with writing dramatic forms.
Anna Kerth, born in Poland in 1980. She graduated with a Master’s Degree from the State Academy of Theatrical Arts in Krakow in 2003, and also has a certificate of the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, U.S.A. Anna has done a number of workshops and theatre developments with, amongst many, Song of the Goat Theatre, Oleg Kisseliov, Laura Pasetti, AH McLean, Christopher Sivertsen and Robert Wilson. After graduating she worked for a year at the D. Siemaszkowa Theatre in Rzeszow. She created several female leading parts.
Anna has been working in theatre and film in both Poland and Great Britain since 2004. In 2009 she was nominated for the BAFTA Scotland award in the category of Best Performance for her role in the feature film Running in Traffic, which it has had its world premiere at this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival.
Translator’s note:
The translation was an inspiration that came from million thoughts about the cokolwiek sie zdarzy kocham cię show in TR I had seen years earlier, talks with Aga Slodownik and Marcin Cecko himself, thoughts about slam and rhythms I heard in my head while repeating the memorized poem.
The main goal was: to grasp the rhythmical flow of words and to achieve literal meaning together with many different associations that would come up anyway, as it happens in Polish language. We can see this for example in the phrases 'someone walked in on the truth' and 'am connecting now.'
I have borrowed shakespearian grammar inversion of the word 'not' which
helps to achieve sort of word game with the word 'free' and also boost the rhythm of those two verses:
'free not to eat free not to look to listen not free
free to wait wait to be free'