Quotes from Anna Kamie?ska

I write in order to comprehend, not to express myself.

I received the grace of shadows. The grace of remaining in the dark. - From A Nest of Quiet: A Notebook

Can you think yourself to death?

During the sleepless hours of the night a thought came to me that seemed important. I got up in the dark and wrote it down. In the morning I read: 'I went looking for loneliness. But it found me.

To write incorporeal poems, almost without words. To approximate the impossible, where art disappears and the Word becomes.

I have hands full of this radiance. It flows through my fingers. It doesn't diminish.

Lack of Faith" Yes, even when I don't believe— there is a place in me inaccessible to unbelief, a patch of wild grace, a stubborn preserve, impenetrable, pain untouched by the sleeping body, music that builds its nest in silence.

A whisper. To speak in a whisper. To whisper—like the sea.

Writing down your thoughts is both necessary and harmful. It leads to eccentricity, narcissism, preserves what should be let go. On the other hand, these notes intensify the inner life, which, left unexpressed, slips through your fingers. If only I could find a better kind of journal, humbler, one that would preserve the same thoughts, the same flesh of life, which is worth saving. from "In That Great River: A Notebook," Poetry . Originally Published: June 1, 2010

Even a painful longing is some form of presence. from "A Nest of Quiet: A Notebook," trans. Clare Cavanagh, Poetry (1 May 2012)

We create eternity out of crumbs of time.

The immense light. A state of inner emergency and waiting...This luminosity does not negate reason or any rational sense. It simply exists. A kind of poetic sensibility open to the world. To everything--grand and small.

A Path in the Woods from a New Name" I don't trust the truth of memories because what leaves us departs forever There's only one current of this sacred river but I still want to remain faithful to my first astonishments to recognize as wisdom the child's wonder and to carry in myself until the end a path in the woods of my childhood dappled with patches of sunlight

Okazuje si?, ?e nie ma nic trudniejszego ni? by?. Podejrzewa?em to. Cz?owiek podpiera si? ca?? swoj? krz?tanin?, beznadziejnym poczuciem obowi?zku, pracowito?ci?, która jest tylko tchórzostwem, l?kiem przed samym byciem.

Yes, even when I don't believe— there is a place in me inaccessible to unbelief, a patch of wild grace, a stubborn preserve, impenetrable, pain untouched by the sleeping body, music that builds its nest in silence. — Anna Kamienska, "Lack of Faith," Astonishments: Selected Poems of Anna Kamienska . Paraclete Press (MA); First Edition edition July 1, 2007) Originally published 2007.

Prawie wszystkie ludzkie nieszcz??cia bior? si? st?d, ?e cz?owiek chce mie? drugiego na w?asno?? i na zawsze.

We create eternity out of crumbs of time.