"A Discarded Tire by the Road": Miłosz Settles up with Ginsberg

Jerzy Jarniewicz

Titles

Abstract

This article discusses Czesław Miłosz’s ambiguous relationship with American beat
and confessional poetry as well as with the counterculture of the 1960s. It focuses
on one of Miłosz’s late poems dedicated to Allen Ginsberg, published in Facing the
River in 1994. The poem, though ostensibly about Ginsberg, is in fact one of the most
confessional poems the Polish poet has ever written, presenting his own life as a failure,
“a discarded tire by the road,” and setting up Ginsberg as an exemplary wiser poet,
“who persisting in folly attained wisdom.” On the one hand, it seems diffi cult not to
see Miłosz and Ginsberg as two very different personalities. On the other hand, Miłosz
saw Ginsberg as the true heir to Whitman, whom he himself had always admired.
The discussion of the poem reveals that Miłosz uses Ginsberg as his own antithesis,
a Yeatsian mask or a Jungian shadow, representing everything that the Polish poet, with
his admitted contempt for any trace of weakness and mental instability, has never been or valued.

This article discusses Czesław Miłosz’s ambiguous relationship with American beat
and confessional poetry as well as with the counterculture of the 1960s. It focuses
on one of Miłosz’s late poems dedicated to Allen Ginsberg, published in Facing the
River in 1994. The poem, though ostensibly about Ginsberg, is in fact one of the most
confessional poems the Polish poet has ever written, presenting his own life as a failure,
“a discarded tire by the road,” and setting up Ginsberg as an exemplary wiser poet,
“who persisting in folly attained wisdom.” On the one hand, it seems diffi cult not to
see Miłosz and Ginsberg as two very different personalities. On the other hand, Miłosz
saw Ginsberg as the true heir to Whitman, whom he himself had always admired.
The discussion of the poem reveals that Miłosz uses Ginsberg as his own antithesis,
a Yeatsian mask or a Jungian shadow, representing everything that the Polish poet, with
his admitted contempt for any trace of weakness and mental instability, has never been
or valued.

Keywords

Czesław Miłosz, Allen Ginsberg, counterculture, beat poetry, confessional poetry

References

Altieri, Ch. 1984. Sense and Sensibility in Contemporary American Poetry. New York: Cambridge UP.

Ashbery, J. 2008. Collected Poems 1956–1987. Ed. M. Ford. New York: The Library of America.

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Błoński, J. 1987. “Przedsłowie” [Foreword]. Czesław Miłosz. Trzy zimy i głosy o wierszach [Czesław Miłosz. Three Winters and Interpretations of Poems]. Eds. R. Gorczyńska, P. Kłoczkowski. London: Aneks. 59–60.

Cohen, K. 1979. Film and Fiction: The Dynamics of Exchange. New Haven: Yale UP.

Gorczyńska, R. 1992. Podróżny świata. Rozmowy z Czesławem Miłoszem. Komentarze [The Traveler of the World. Conversations with Czesław Miłosz. Commentaries]. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie.

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Miłosz, C. 1951. “List półprywatny o poezji” [A Semi-Private Letter about Poetry]. In: C. Miłosz. 1990. Zaczynając od Moich Ulic [Starting from My Streets]. Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Dolnośląskie.

––––– 1983. The Witness of Poetry. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP.

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––––– 2003. “Aleksander Wat’s Tie.” In: New and Collected Poems 1931–2001. Trans. C. Miłosz and R. Hass. New York: Ecco.

––––– 2006. Selected Poems 1931–2004. New York: Ecco.

Moore, M. 1994. Complete Poems. New York: Penguin.

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––––– 1999. The Poetics of Indeterminacy: Rimbaud to Cage. Evanston: Northwestern UP.

Pound, E. 1996. The Cantos of Ezra Pound. New York: New Directions.

Tytell, J. 1987. Ezra Pound. The Solitary Volcano. New York: Anchor.

Sharp, W. 1912. “The Sonnet: Its Characteristics and History.” Studies and Appreciations. New York: Duffi eld. 1–70.

Stitt, P. 1983. “The Art of Poetry XXXIII.” Interview with John Ashbery. Paris Review 90, 31– 59.

Zach, J. 2002. Miłosz i poetyka wyznania [Miłosz and the Poetics of Confession]. Kraków: Universitas.

Zaleski, M. 2005. Zamiast. O twórczości Czesława Miłosza [Instead. About Czesław Miłosz’s Oeuvre]. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie.

Information

Information: Przekładaniec, Issues in English, Issue 25/2011– Between Miłosz and Milosz, pp. 133 - 145

DOI: https://doi.org/10.4467/16891864ePC.13.020.1209

Article type: Original article

Titles:

Polish:

"A Discarded Tire by the Road": Miłosz Settles up with Ginsberg

English:

"A Discarded Tire by the Road": Miłosz Settles up with Ginsberg

Authors

Jerzy Jarniewicz

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2106-4030

University of Lodz, Poland, ul. Narutowicza 65, 90-131 Łódź

Published at: 02.08.2013

Article status: Open

Licence: None

Percentage share of authors:

Jerzy Jarniewicz (Author) - 100%

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English

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