“Mój nieocalony”, a poem in the poetic volume of Jerzy Ficowski Ptak poza ptakiem, is dedicated to Bruno Schulz.
Published in 1968 – a year infamously recorded in the history of Polish-Jewish relations – the volume of poems by Jerzy Ficowski – Ptak poza ptakiem contains a poem “Mój nieocalony” dedicated to “The Memory of Bruno Schulz”. The poem was reprinted in selections of Ficowski’s poetry: Wskazówki dla początkujących zegarów. Wiersze z lat 1945–1984, Wszystko to, czego nie wiem and Gorączka rzeczy. It was also included in Ficowski’s books about Schulz – in 1986* in the collection Okolice sklepów cynamonowych. Szkice, przyczynki, impresje as a poetic epilogue and in Regiony wielkiej herezji i okolice. Bruno Schulz i jego mitologia (2002) as a motto.
Katarzyna Kuczyńska-Koschany describes the poem in the following way: “When we read the whole poem, we know that his hero is a Jew hiding in the mezzanine made of beams, and at the same time we know that this is not the case because he was killed on 19 November 1942. We know that the conversation between the one writing the poem and one hiding in it – the illusion of a new security (the year of 1968!) is impossible”. Jerzy Kandziora sees the salvatory function of the present tense used in this poem, in which, despite the title that denies any faith in salvation, one can see a kind of rebellion against annihilation, a kind of salvatory activity: “The present tense used here seems to be closing the space of the poem, defending it against any change, and even more so – from death”.
Paulina Czwordon, in the image of Schulz entering “the wood more and more woodily” a figure that was spectacularly crippled, “up to incompletion and death”. (mr) (transl. mw)
See also: 19 November 1942*, 1942 or 1943*, August 1981*, April 1986*, 2002*.
