Joanna Sapa
Konteksty Kultury, Volume 13, Issue 4, 2016, pp. 372 - 384
https://doi.org/10.4467/23531991KK.16.021.6760Tadeusz Nowak, the author of Psalm codzienny [Everyday Psalm] not only plays the role of a continuator of this genre in the second half of the 20th century, but also is a restorer of the form. The world presented in his stanzaic, regular poems is permeated by pain and undeserved but inevitable suffering. On the other hand, in his poems it is difficult to find a clear and typical elements of Biblical psalms: the feeling of stability and care, trust or faith. However, the article is not only an attempt at classifying this interpretatively difficult poem according to genre, but also a study of the rural reality of the mid-20th century (particular motifs are described in separate sections). Nowak combines the Biblical tradition with folklore, draws on the rich symbolism of numbers, refers to the Decalogue and Commandments of the Church, as well as looks deep inside the human and doesn’t shy away from showing their flaws and faults. Hence, both in the article and in the poem the refrain recurs again and again: “next to the man there lies / an angel tied with a wire / a herring skeleton glass / next to the man there lies / a crucified god.” These apparently insignificant mundane objects, which (apparently) do not match the sphere of the sacred, gain new senses in Nowak’s poem. The simple reality and that “folkloric clutter” cease to be any cultural “junk” and become rediscovered jewels of tradition.