(“Is it more important to focus on the loss or the coming back?”, Theresa D. Smith in “An Interview with Adam Zagajewski,” Sycamore Review, vol. 21, issue 1, 2009)
Poetry, like philosophy
and every art, is preparation
for death, trying to establish
at every single turn
the last thing that happens.
The departure from a native city
is a one-time event.
Each visit back is not
a real return
the city gives the artist a huge gift
a paradoxical anchor
a negative anchor
a kind of a poisoned gift
because you also lose something.
Once you get that gift
you have to be careful
to not overdo it
hysterical nostalgia.
Terms of departures
and returns
are not about place,
it is the state of mind
which produces poetry, poetry
is the thing that disappears
and returns all the time.
One day
we’ll disappear forever
poetry
is a way to tame
the hostility of the world
by stressing this rhythm
of departing
and return.
Whole in the Head 