Wbrew zębatkom, po myśli piasku

Against the Cogs, Across the Sands of Thought is the eighth book of poems by Tomasz Bąk – an author who, over the years, has arguably managed to achieve the status of the most important voice of his generation (that is, roughly speaking, people born during the period of Poland’s transition to democracy). The book sees Bąk return to themes that have been central to his work: the depressing absurdities of life under capitalism; the latter’s unstable, crisis-prone nature; bullshit jobs, as well as the kinds of work that still manage to shape the world around us. (The poet’s interest in the latter is clear from the very start: the book opens with a motto from Carl Sandburg, who serves throughout as a patron saint of sorts.) Bąk remains an insightful historical materialist: putting the relationship between storytelling and explanation at the heart of the book, he wants to draw our attention to the fact that today the latter is often omitted in favour of the former, and the fundamental structures that shape the world around us – and which so often remain entirely indifferent to our existence – are often made less clear or less visible by the incessant yarn-spinning. As he writes in the strongly programmatic eponymous poem of the book: “And when I direct my attention to the labour theory of value, / it is not so that I can understand the prices better, / but in order to give the world a form”. Bąk remains interested in the possibility of explaining the world – describing the truths that actually underlie it – rather than writing poems in which his readers will only see the mirror image of themselves.

The poet’s voice in Against the Cogs… is stern and decisive, but this paradoxically allows for an attitude that is perhaps kinder and gentler than ever. In what might just be the most beautiful poem of the book, Bąk describes the superficially perfect life of an anonymous life coach in a manner that is understanding, even tender, but devoid of any tackiness or pretence.