Czynny do odwołania

Forty-four poems, many written to be sung, that work as a single sequence. Apart from the opening command, every title is a Polish verbal noun naming a habit repeated without end (kissing, smoking, wanting, betraying, cooking, shopping), and the titles run in alphabetical order. A woman's voice announces that childhood is over and orders the speaker to stand to attention; adult life means work, voting, holidays abroad and better cigarettes, lived between cathedral and supermarket. He cooks meals he will not eat, buys rice because it is rice, kisses the microphone on stage, calls his cigarette his closest friend, wipes away his fingerprints, lies on a beach like a monster on leave. Punk-style songs sit beside dense poems full of wordplay, with time, pain and emptiness close behind.

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About the book

Form

Poetry

Length

56 pages in the original

First published

2001 by Wydawnictwo Czarne

Author's age

40 when first published

ISBN

9788387391331 (original)