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Getting to know America

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Life on Long Island
Julia Hartwig Poet
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We returned to Iowa where Artur was still lecturing at the university although I no longer was, and from there we went at the invitation of New York University, a part of New York University, to Stony Brook. I have to say that I found this fantastically interesting and appealing because the natural surroundings are beautiful, wonderful views, relatively few people as the houses and gardens there are isolated from one another and belong to very wealthy people, businessmen or possibly even writers, I think, but I'm not certain, that Stevens lives nearby. So Long Island was something completely different, it was a totally different America, it was hard to keep up, but it was the kind of America that I had rather expected. I hadn't expected that rural Iowan America but rather this one which would bring us into contact with interesting people, and this we succeeded in doing. There were two people lecturing at this university who had never returned to Poland following their trip abroad and these were Jan Kott and Roman Karst. Of course we stayed in close contact with them and it was very nice to be able to sometimes exchange views with them on the subject of what was happening in Poland, although they reacted far more coolly as they had no intention of returning to Poland, they were effectively emigrants. We, on the other hand, took a very lively interest and would listen intently to all the signs coming out of Poland and that's how we learned who was in hiding, who was being pursued and this and that.

I jeszcze wróciliśmy do Iowa, gdzie... gdzie z kolei na uniwersytecie w Iowa Artur wykładał – ja już nie – i stamtąd pojechaliśmy z... na zaproszenie uniwersytetu nowojorskiego – znaczy oddziału uniwersytetu nowojorskiego – do Stony Brook. To było, muszę powiedzieć, fantastycznie dla mnie ciekawe i ładne, bo tam jest... to są... piękna przyroda, wspaniałe widoki, stosunkowo małe zaludnienie, bo to raczej są takie izolowane domy i ogrody ludzi bardzo zamożnych, jakichś biznesmenów albo nawet jakichś pisarzy prawdopodobnie, zdaje się, że... nie wiem, czy Stevens tam nie miał gdzieś w pobliżu jakiegoś domu także. Więc to Long Island to było coś zupełnie innego – to tam była tak inna Ameryka, że trudno by się było... było połapać, ale właściwie to była ta Ameryka na którą... której się ja raczej spodziewałam. Bo nie spodziewałam się tej kukurydzianej Ameryki Iowańskiej, ale właśnie tej Ameryki, która nas doprowadzi do jakichś kontaktów z ciekawymi ludźmi i tu się tam udało. Zresztą na uniwersytecie tym wykładało dwóch ludzi, którzy właściwie już nie wrócili do Polski po pobycie za granicą – to był Jan Kott i Roman Karst. Oczywiście utrzymywaliśmy z nimi bliskie stosunki. Było to bardzo miłe, że można było czasem wymienić się opiniami na temat tego, co się dzieje w Polsce z tym że oni na to reagowali o wiele chłodniej, ponieważ już nie mieli zamiaru wracać do kraju, byli właściwie już emigrantami; no natomiast my reagowaliśmy bardzo żywo i wsłuchiwaliśmy się we wszystkie znaki idące z Polski i tam dowiadywaliśmy się, że ktoś się ukrywa, że kogoś gonią, że to, że tamto.

Born to a Polish father and a Russian mother, Julia Hartwig (1921-2017) was a Polish poet, essayist, translator and author of children's books. She studied at the University of Warsaw, the Catholic University in Lublin and the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. Czesław Miłosz called her 'the grande dame of Polish poetry'. Julia Hartwig was one of the few poets in Poland who made masterly use of poetic prose. She translated poems by Apollinaire, Rimbaud, Max Jacob, Cendrars and Supervielle, and published monographs on Apollinaire and Gerard de Nerval. She also translated from English, and published a large anthology of American poetry which she co-edited in 1992 with her late husband, the poet Artur Międzyrzecki.

Listeners: Andrzej Wolski

Film director and documentary maker, Andrzej Wolski has made around 40 films since 1982 for French television, the BBC, TVP and other TV networks. He specializes in portraits and in historical films. Films that he has directed or written the screenplay for include Kultura, which he co-directed with Agnieszka Holland, and KOR which presents the history of the Worker’s Defence Committee as told by its members. Andrzej Wolski has received many awards for his work, including the UNESCO Grand Prix at the Festival du Film d’Art.

Tags: USA, Iowa, New York University, Stony Brook, Long Island, Poland, Artur Międzyrzecki, Jan Kott, Roman Karst

Duration: 1 minute, 45 seconds

Date story recorded: June 2010

Date story went live: 14 June 2011