Chopin Monuments Around the World I - Warsaw, Poland (Vol. 6, No. 7)

What is the function of Chopin monuments? They do not tell us how he looked like. Maybe what he and his music meant and means...  national ideology, artistic conventions, musical myth-making... 

Photograph of Chopin by L.A. Bisson, 1849.

For his looks we could turn to the only two extant photographs of Chopin, one from 1849, with the suffering, somber pianist facing straight at the camera (taken by L.A. Bisson at the home of Chopin's publisher Maurice Schlesinger) and another one, badly damaged, yet revealing the elegant, reserved, intelligent and vulnerable man in 1846 or 1847 (a daguerreotype from Warsaw's Chopin Museum, published in 1990 by John O'Shea, reprinted and reversed by pianist-composer Jack Gibbons).  In both,  Chopin wears a tense expression, with a frown above a prominent nose. He is dressed elegantly; his hair is longish and combed back, falling somewhat over his forehead. ( A purported third photograph, of Chopin on his deathbed, surfaced in 2011 but is considered a 19th-century fake).

 

Chopin's 1846-7 daguerreotype, original (L) and reversed (R).  From Jack Gibbon's blog.

There are dozen of paintings, pencil drawings, sketches, oil portraits, of course. And then, there are monuments...  For these, Chopin is typically made larger than life, monumental, timeless.  Let's tour his image in his monuments, from bas-relief on memorial plaques, to enormous self-standing sculptures. In this part, we will visit Poland, France and other European countries - some of which Chopin lived in or visited. 

WARSAW, POLAND

Chopin Monument in Warsaw, 2012 photos by Maja Trochimczyk 

Wacław Szymanowski designed the world's most famous Chopin monument in 1907, at the height of Art Nouveau style. It took almost 20 years from the concept to implementation, and the monument went through several reincarnations prior to being built.  It was finally erected in 1926 in the upper part of Warsaw's Royal Baths (Łazienki) Park, visible from the Aleje Ujazdowskie boulevard, with a large reflective pond in front of the bronze statue of the composer seated by a willow bent by the force of wind... 

Chopin Monument in Lazienki Park, detail, photo by Maja Trochimczyk 

Every time I visit Warsaw I stop over at the monument, depicted here with lovely blues and greens of the spring.  I really do not like it. It must be some kind of a morbid fascination, then... But only now, after looking at the photographs, I noticed that it shows the suffering, inspired pianist in reverse, with the lock of hair above the frown flowing dramatically to the left, from hair parted on the right.  The historical accuracy has to give in to the artistic vision... For a detailed story of the concept and genesis of the monument read the article by Waldemar Okon, "The Monument of Fryderyk Chopin by Waclaw Szymanowski: Concepts and Reality" in The Age of Chopin, edited by Halina Goldberg, 2004. 

Chopin Monument in the Lazienki Park, details. 2012 Photo by Maja Trochimczyk

For those who do not know, the Monument that we see now is not the original bronze cast erected in 1926 - that one was destroyed by the Germans on May 31, 1940, as depicted on the photograph below.

Photo by an unknown author reproduced from Leszek Wysznacki, Warszawa od wyzwolenia do naszych dni, Wydawnictwo Sport i Turystyka, Warszawa 1977, p. 180, uploaded to Wikipedia by Boston9.

The rebuilt statue was dedicated in 1958, with an inscription on the side of the pedestal documenting this aspect of its history. Noon Chopin recitals are performed at the base of the statue every Sunday (in good weather) since 1959. You can listen to a brief fragment of Fantaisie - Impromptu from 2007 (amateur video), or to a longer 10-minute fragment of a recital by Piotr Latoszyński from 14 September 2014

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There are many other "faces" of Chopin in Warsaw, stylized from his hand-drawn or painted portraits, that appear on a variety of memorial tablets in Warsaw, the city of his youth and studies.  Some have been there for decades, others were created and placed on the occasion of his bicentennial in 2010. 

Photo from Wikipedia

A plaque from 2010 commemorates the 8-year-old child prodigy in his first public performance that took place in today's Presidential Palace, Warsaw, The concert was organized by the Warsaw Philanthropic Society (Towarzystwo Dobroczynnosci) and took place on 24 February 1818.

Chopin Museum in Ostrogski Palace Photo by Maja Trochimczyk

From there it is not too far to Palac Ostrogskich on Tamka Street (also rebuilt after the war), now the Chopin Museum, that houses many Chopin sculptures, portraits and documents, among them the first, and most realistic sculpture of the composer, his death mask, made in plaster by the husband of Solange, George Sand's daughter, Auguste Clesinger. 

Chopin Death Mask by Auguste Clesinger, in Chopin Museum. Photo by Maja Trochimczyk

An altogether different image - youthful, happy  Chopin with a pompadour - appears on the bas-relief adorning the plaque in the Holy Cross Church, on the pillar where the urn with Chopin's heart is preserved. Smuggled into Poland after his death by sister Ludwika Jedrzejewicz, Chopin's heart was permanently entombed inside that pillar in 1882, with a tablet by Leonard Marconi.  The inscription from Matthew VI:21 ("For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also") explains Chopin's deathbed wish that his sister was instrumental in realizing - by taking his heart back home, to Poland.  The pillar, along with the whole church, was completely destroyed by Germans after the Warsaw Uprising, but they removed the heart for safekeeping before doing so. Now it is safely enshrined in the church pillar again.

Entrance to the Holy Cross Church on Krakowskie Przedmiescie with the Christ sculpture, and 

the "Sursum Corda" Inscription (Lift Up Your Hearts), Photo 2014 by Maja Trochimczyk.

Pillar with Chopin's heart (left) in Holy Cross Church

 in Warsaw. Photo by Maja Trochimczyk, 2010

A closeup of the tablet with  its inscription and Chopin's bust.

2010 Photo by Maja Trochimczyk

Another plaque is found on the walls of the building where the Chopin family lived in 1820, now belonging to the campus of the University of Warsaw. As a graduate of the university, that incorporated the Warsaw Lyceum where Nicolas Chopin taught in the 1810s and 1820s, I feel quite connected to Chopin, even if my classes were in a far-off Geology building somewhere on the way to the airport (musicology being the study of petrified music, does belong with geology, no?).   I took this picture during the Second International Chopin Congress in 1999 and now cannot find it.

Malgorzata Kalicinska, Chopin and Maja Trochimczyk, 2010.

Instead, I found two photographs of Chopin's busts, one from Palac Kazimierzowski during the Third International Chopin Congress in 2010 (with Malgorzata Kalicinska), and one in the foyer of my other alma mater, Chopin Academy of Music, formerly known as F. Chopin State Higher School of Music and currently named Fryderyk Chopin University of Music.

Facing Chopin in Warsaw, 2012. Photo by Nikodem Wolk-Laniewski

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There were also quite a few official flags of the school, with its changing name and unchanging, iconic Chopin's profile. 

 

Official flags of the Chopin Academy (1970s-1990s) and the renamed Chopin University (current).

Having measured my nose against Chopin, and having lost that nose-to-nose competition, I went for a walk around town, and found Chopin everywhere. Well, not his likeness, but his music - present on recordings mounted into 14 dark basalt (or black marble) benches, with carved maps and captions. This was a gift to the city created for Chopin's bicentennial, marking the places important to his biography (the church he played the organ, the home where he lived, the place where he boarded the stagecoach to take him to Vienna, and then Stuttgart, and Paris). The benches are still attractive and educational, even though a few of the "press-the-button" music boxes stopped working by 2014 when I photographed them again. In any case, these are wonderful elements of Warsaw's landscape that capture the attention of passerby and, occasionally, fill the air with Chopin's music. 

Here is the bench place at the edge of the Plac Zamkowy, the opposite side of the street 

from St. Anne's Church.  Below is a fragment of the map. 

Chopin Music Bench. February 2010 photos by Maja Trochimczyk. 

Chopin Music Bench on Plac Krasinskich (Krasinski Square)

2014 Photo by Maja Trochimczyk

Map on the bench on Plac Krasinskich, yellow marks the location, the starting point.

2014 Photo by Maja Trochimczyk

Here's the list of Chopin Music Benches with their location and music played at each, the tour is described on Warsaw's official tourist page, though with musical errors in captions that I corrected below. 

List of Chopin Music Bench Locations (according to Visit Chopin in Warsaw site, with added musical links to historical recordings of featured works):

1) The Krasiński Square – This square used to house the National Theatre building, where in March 1830 Fryderyk Chopin presented his famous Concerto in F minor.  This was also where in October 1830 he played his last farewell concert before leaving the country. The building does not exist any more and there is the Warsaw Uprising Monument on the square instead.  Krasiński Square – MAZURKA in A minor, Op. 17 No. 4; 39” - Listen to a version recorded by Arthur Rubinstein. 

2) The Miodowa Street – The entire social life of the capital used to be concentrated here. The local cafes, such as Pod Kopciuszkiem, Dziurka and Honoratka - the venues of meetings for artists and young people - were visited by Chopin almost on a daily basis.  Miodowa Street - MAZURKA in A minor, Op. 68; 34” - Listen to a version  recorded by Serge Rachmaninoff 

3) The Kozia Street – This narrow street used to be an important transport route in Chopin’s times. The U Brzezińskiej cafe was his favourite place to visit. Kozia Street – “HULANKA” song; 29” - Listen to a version recorded by Andrzej Hiolski, baritone.

3) The Music Conservatory – The place which now features a square over the East-West Underpass used to house the Music Conservatory where Fryderyk Chopin studied musical composition. Music Conservatory – WALTZ in E-flat major, Op. 18; 39”  - Listen to the Grande Valse Brillante Op. 18 No. 2 played by Garrick Ohlsson

4) The Wessel Palace – This was where on November 2nd 1830 Fryderyk Chopin got on a stagecoach and set out on his trip to fame – to Vienna and further to Paris. Wessel Palace – GRANDE POLONAISE in E-flat major, Op. 22; 35” - Listen to a version recorded by Krystian Zimerman in 1979.

5) The Radziwiłł Palace – This was where on February 24th 1818 Fryderyk Chopin, aged 8, gave his first public performance. Radziwiłł Palace located on Krakowskie Przedmiescie 387, now houses Polish government offices - RONDO in C minor, Op.1; 32” - Listen to a version recorded by Vladimir Askenazy.

6) The Saxon Palace (Palac Saski) – The Chopin family moved here in 1810, after Fryderyk’s father had accepted a job at the famous Warsaw Lyceum, which used to occupy part of the palace’s rooms. Saski Palace - MAZUREK in B-flat major, Op. 7 No. 1; 36” - Listen to a version recorded by Henryk Sztompka in 1959

7) The Saxon Garden (Ogrod Saski) – This was where the young Chopin entertained while he and his family resided at the Saski Palace (the former seat of the Warsaw Lyceum). Saski Garden – NOCTURNE in B major, Op. 9 No. 3; 47” - Listen to a version by Guiomar Novaes, 1959, the Nocturne starts at 9'53''

8) The Visitants’ Church – In Chopin’s times Sunday masses for students of the Warsaw Lyceum used to take place here, during which Fryderyk Chopin, aged 15, used to play the organ, performing the function of the Lyceum organist. The Visitants’ Church - LARGO in E-flat major (Op. posth.); 46” - listen to the Largo played by Anatol Ugorski.

9) The Kazimierzowski Palace – In 1817 the Warsaw Lyceum, and the newly-established Warsaw University, were located here. The Chopin family came to reside in the right-hand annexe (the Deputy Rector’s Building). Kazimierzowski Palace - WALTZ in E minor (Op. posth.); 45” - Listen to four historical interpretations of the Waltz from the early 1900s: Moriz Rosenthal, Leopold Godowsky (starts at 2'58''), Sergei Rachmaninoff (4'45''), and Josef Hofmann (recording of 1916, starts at 6'36''). 

10) The Czapski Palace – The Chopin family moved here in 1827 and Fryderyk got a room in a small garret, equipped with a piano. Located at Krakowskie Przedmiescie no. 5, it now houses the Academy of the Fine Arts.  The former residence of the Chopin family, located on the second floor, now features the Chopin Parlour museum with period furnishings. The Czapski Palace – WALTZ in D-flat major, Op. 64 No 1; 42” - Listen to Valentina Lisitsa playing the "Minute Waltz" in 1'48'' with extra slow trio and a wide range of tempi. 

11) The Holy Cross Church – the place where Chopin’s heart rests.Holy Cross Church – FUNERAL MARCH (Marche funebre) from SONATA in B-flat Minor, Op. 35; 45” - listen to a fascinating interpretation by Ivo Pogorelic from the early 1980s, the March starts at 17'18''.

12) The Zamoyski Palace – Chopin’s sister, who gathered the souvenirs of her brother, used to live here. In 1863 an attempt on the life of a Tsar’s governor was made through the palace windows, in retaliation for which all the tenants were removed from their flats and their entire property was destroyed. Among the objects thrown through the windows and burned was Chopin’s piano. Zamoyski Palace – ETUDE in C minor, Op. 10 No. 12; 42”  - Listen to an interpretation of the "Revolutionary Etude" by Stanislaw Bunin from 1985, the year he won the Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw (2'37'')

13) The Gniński - Ostrogski Palace – The seat of the Fryderyk Chopin Museum, next to which the Chopin Centre is located. Gniński – Ostrogski Palace – BALLADE in F minor, Op. 52; 42” - Listen to an interpretation recorded by Krystian Zimerman for the Polish TV in ca. 1979, four years after he won the Chopin Piano Competition (11'22'').

14) The Fryderyk Chopin Monument in Lazienki Park – The most famous monument of the composer in the world is located in the Łazienki or Łazienkowski (Royal Baths) Park, opposite the park gate in Aleje Ujazdowskie, near Belvedere. The Fryderyk Chopin Monument – POLONAISE in A major, Op. 40 No. 1; 39” - Listen to the "Military" Polonaise played by Josef Hofmann in 1923 (3'21''), by Arthur Rubinstein in 432 Hz natural tuning of the piano (3'45''), with its dramatic tempo differences and heroic expression, by Halina Czerny-Stefanska in the 1970s (5'16''), with its plodding, systematic, pedagogical evenness, or by that maverick of Las Vegas pianists, Liberace (3'23''), playing it as musically as the grand old masters.

Chopin Monument, 2012  Photo by Maja Trochimczyk

Martin Willitts, Jr. Discusses Chopin's Music and Poetry (Vol. 6, No. 6)

A talented poet, musician, gardener, healer, and a Quaker, Martin Willitts, Jr., is also a retired librarian, a publisher and an artist, working on paper cutouts. He contributed to two of my anthologies, Chopin with Cherries (2010) and Meditations on Divine Names (2012). In June 2015, he and his wife, also a Quaker and a poet, Linda Griggs, welcomed me to their  home. They took me on a sight-seeing tour of Syracuse, New York, including a splendid rose garden in the rain, and organized a reading for me for the Palace Poetry Group at DeWitt Community Library.

Having spent all this time with these two fascinating individuals and poets, I decided to share Martin's poems about Chopin on this blog, and publish an interview I conducted with him by email, about poetry and Chopin's music.

Martin Willitts Jr. and Linda Griggs, Photo by Maja Trochimczyk

MARTIN WILLITTS Jr.'s POEMS ABOUT CHOPIN

THE ENEMY IS IN THE HOUSE

“The enemy is in the house (...) Oh God, do you exist? You do and yet you do not avenge. -  Have you not had enough of Moscow’s crimes - or - or are You Yourself a Muscovite (...) I here, useless! And I here empty-handed. At times I can only groan, suffer, and pour out my despair at my piano!”

                                                — Chopin, 1831, learning that Poland

                                                      had been defeated by Russian armies.

The piano cannot stop wars, nor lift the dead,

nor block the door. I am numb, empty handed,

wondering why you cannot stop this silence

deadly as bullets. There are no avenging angels crying.

The Russians are shooting notes of despair

and all I can do is huddle in the sheet music of snow.

Paris is the gathering place of defeated friends,

failed politicians, grieving mothers and wounded artists.

There are exiles everywhere speaking Polish sadness.

I cannot pound the keys on my piano loud enough.

I shall never return to my homeland.

I shall not give in to the Russian demands.

I shall not let one note from my fingers serve them.

The enemy is in the house.

It does not mean they can trample the rugs with mud.

We have a saying where I come from.

If a stranger stays uninvited, then call him a friend

and mistreat him like a friend, then he will go away

thinking your false friendship is real as butter on bread.

It is like playing with a piano one-handed. It can be done,

but not as well as with two hands.

It is like a gun without bullets.

It is like a person without a home.

Published in "Chopin with Cherries," 2010, p. 24

DISCORD

1.  Chopin to George Sand, 1847

The delicate touch you felt on your neck

is the same as on a piano, with the same lyrical rush,

the music of leaves in the resolute winds.

It is the same idiomatic language of geese leaving.

My heart has the same feeling, restless, yearning.

When I play a rondo, no one can hear the silence after.

I leave these early movements behind

like I must leave you.

Some things are finished when they are finished.

I thought of returning to you.

I hesitated at your window.

I knew if you saw me with that melodic look you have,

it would enrapture me.

Our bodies would become counterpoints.

But it would be fragmentary motifs. Textural nuances

of what used to be.

Our love was illicit, some say.

I say, it was melodic, rhythmic, and full of music.

Our love was repetitions of a single note.

You criticized me for my primitive sense of form

when we would lie in bed, soaked in harmonic intonations.

You were right about me as well as everything else.

I cannot help being in the soundscape of textures,

in the lightness of sound, in the last moment leaving you.

For life is opening one door and descending unknown stairs.

2. George Sand to “beloved little corpse”

You could not stand a woman who did not act like a woman

except in bed. Even then you were horrified

by the idea a woman could enjoy passion.

What were all those compositions of love-soaked music then?

You were not my first lover and you will not be my last.

A woman should pick and choose who will enter her bedroom.

You shake your head, expecting me to fall for your music like others.

A woman cannot be a slave to men.

You will not allow us to be equal.

So what choice do I have?

What choice does any woman have?

I changed my name so I could publish what scandalizes you.

Women have a right to sincere love and I will write about it.

I shall write about my desires and disappointments.

I will not miss you. I will only find another.

What have you done recently?

Note: “Beloved little corpse” was her name for Chopin due to his numerous sicknesses.

 Published in "Chopin with Cherries" p. 131-132.

OPUS 21

Blackened corpses of stars are going nova.
All day, it has been crackling with heat insects.
I say, it is God’s voice telling us something important.
The heat grinds us for not listening.
We cannot seem to leave well enough alone.
Our futile attempts to improve or streamline life
only makes it worse.

Sheet music’s passages of wildness — briars
and milkweed sends music into trumpets of wind —
this melody heals stunted saplings, brings Light
to darkened air, finding cures for emptiness —

Light! — come fill us! Heal the forgotten!


Published online in the Black Poppy Review, with the Opus series.

INTERVIEW WITH MARTIN WILLITTS, JR.

Maja Trochimczyk's Question: What does Chopin mean for you? What do you like about his music?

Martin Willitts, Jr.'s Answer: I was playing piano at an early age. I am not sure when I started, but by the time I entered Kindergarten (about 5) I was already playing classical music: Beethoven, Mozart, Handel, Brahms, Chopin, and others. I eventually played with a full orchestra in Syracuse, New York. I was also playing chamber music. At one point, I played the Brandenburg Concertos by Bach on the harpsichord.

What I liked about Chopin was all the different styles of music: etudes; polonaises; waltzes; nocturnes, sonatas, and preludes. I think his most challenging piece was Prelude in D-flat Major, Opus 28, No, 15, often called “raindrop” for its sound. I never felt I could exactly get that sound right. I felt it was better plucked by bow on a violin, stretching the open E string.

I have written a series of poems based on the concept of the Opus; and I have titled a number of poems as “Nocturne” as I think of the Chopin and Nocturne in E-Flat Major, Opus 9, No. 2, and others. Although I have not played piano since I was about 12, I still recall the sounds, techniques, fingering, and exactness of pitch. When I lost my hearing, I lost pitch, then I quit playing; but I still hear the music in my head.

Q: What types of music have you studied, or played?

I was bored with classical as a child. I needed something to challenge me. I do not remember why I felt this way, but the structure was boring my creativity. I discovered Jazz, and switched from piano to mandolin. My grandfather had this mandolin from when he was a Union organizer. It has a metal plate resonator making high pitch sounds. My grandfather gave it to me when I tried the “raindrop” from the Preludes. Some people call this mandolin a dobro-mandolin, and I would bottle-neck it like a steel guitar player or a Blues slide guitar player.

I played on live radio some swing Jazz, fast tempo, improvisational fingering. Because a mandolin has double strings, I would trill notes (playing notes really fast), and because of the high scales, I was able to go extremely high compared to a piano. By this time, all I was interested in was individual notes and I abandoned all chord structures and sight reading.

For a while I played in coffeehouses with folk singers, and the people I played with became famous later. I decided I did not like the egos involved in band structures. Vietnam interrupted my playing, and I lost perfect-pitch.

When we met, I talked about the mathematics in music, and suggested there were two kinds of composers: the ones who stressed the math and tried to treat music as a mathematical formula; and those who wrote and/or played from the heart. There is an awareness of the metronome and the music signature at the top of the sheet music that tells you the measure and pace. The famous Jazz piece “Take-Five” performed by the Dave Brubeck Quartet is E-Flat Minor, quintuple (5/4) time.

Martin Willitts Jr. with his antique mandoline. 

Q: What is it about music that appeals to you?

A: I listen to all types of music, including contemporary. When I listen, I am focused on the notes, their technique, what they do differently, how they play solos or work with the group. If the band only knows three chords or repeat too often, I lose interest. It also helps if I hear the music without seeing the musicians, so I am not judging them by their “name” or appearance. A good example was the contemporary singer Lady Gaga singing Sound Of Music. I was surprised at her vocal range.

Q: Why do you write poetry?

I became interested in poetry accidentally. If someone had asked me about poetry when I was a teenager, I would have thought they were crazy. Schools do a lousy job at promoting poetry. I originally thought of writing drama. I took a creative writing course to find out if I was good at it. The first day, the teacher said they would only read and talk about poetry. I am the kind of person who hears that as a challenge. At first, I was better than the average beginner. Over time, I would like to think I have become better.

I tend to write like a Jazz musician in that I improvise while writing. I tend to write thematically. I write several poems in a short burst of energy. When you play live music, you learn to perform on one-take, and if you make a mistake, you must continue. I disliked multiple attempts at recording music. When I was a session musician, I had in my contract about the one-take concept. If they wanted to re-record, I was already packing up. I seldom revise for this same reason, because I am revising as I am writing.

Sometimes, the classical musician in me will set aside a poem for revision. I will become overly cautious about every word, the value of each word, the structure of the line, the way it appears on the page, the punctuation, the imagery, and the phrasing of a line.

I have opposite viewpoints about writing. Sometimes, I do not trust my poems and I wonder if I am good enough. Other times I trust whatever I write. There are times I want to destroy everything; and other times the urge to write is overwhelming. I range from the highly structure to the totally unstructured compositions. I think of Chopin: how he must have felt, looking at the blank sheet music, wanting to fill it all in faster than he could write.

I am a retired Librarian. Over thirty years of the same reference questions, I reached to the point I knew a lot of subjects. I tend to bring all that information into the poems: history, art, politics, social issues, plant identification, spirituality, and other subjects.

Martin Willitts Jr. with one of his papercuts. 

ABOUT MARTIN WILLITTS, JR.

Martin Willitts Jr is a retired Librarian living in Syracuse, New York. He was nominated for 11 Pushcart and 11 Best of the Net awards. He provided his hands-on workshop “How to Make Origami Haiku Jumping Frogs” at the 2012 Massachusetts Poetry Festival. Winner of the 2012 Big River Poetry Review’s William K. Hathaway Award ; co-winner of the 2013 Bill Holm Witness Poetry Contest; winner of the 2013 “Trees” Poetry Contest; winner of the 2014 Broadsided award; winner of the 2014 Dylan Thomas International Poetry Contest.

He has over 20 chapbooks including "Swimming in the Ladle of Stars" (Kattywompus Press,2014),“City Of Tents” (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2014), “The Way Things Used To Be” (Writing Knights Press, 2014), and “Late All Night Sessions with Charlie “the Bird” Parker and the Members of Birdland, in Take-Three” (A Kind Of a Hurricane Press, 2015). He has 8 full length poetry books including ), national ecological award winner for “Searching for What You Cannot See” (Hiraeth Press, 2013), “Before Anything, There Was Mystery” (Flutter Press, 2014), and “Irises, the Lightning Conductor For Van Gogh's Illness” (Aldrich Press, 2014).

His forthcoming books include “Martin Willitts Jr, Greatest Hits” (Kattywompus Press), “How to Be Silent” (FutureCycle Press), “God Is Not Amused With What You Are Doing In Her Name” (Aldrich Press).

He wrote a collection of poems numbered “Opus” poems which have appeared in the following magazines (some under different titles): Big River Poetry Review, Blue Heron Review, Kentucky Review, Literature Today, Love Notes (anthology), Moon Magazine, Page & Spine, Black Poppy Review, Poppy Road Review, and Seven Circles Press. You can read the Black Poppy Review Opus Poems here.

Interview with Kathabela Wilson for "Colorado Boulevard" in Pasadena (Vol. 6, No. 5)

MAJA TROCHIMCZYK INTERVIEW FOR COLORADO BOULEVARD
Short version published in March 2015: 
http://coloradoboulevard.net/mapping-the-artist-maja-trochimczyk/

A Telescope on the Artist

Kathabela Wilson:  As a poet, artist, writer, host, publisher, music historian, I see you as having an unusual scope and vision. How do you see yourself as a poet/artist in the world?

Maja Trochimczyk: Poetry is a window into the soul; an opening into the rift between the earthly and the divine; a unique way of communicating the beauty, and the richness, and the love, and the sorrow of the world. With poetry, first we prove our own existence, then we document the “real” world inside and around us – that has nothing to do with the “reality” created and perpetuated in the media – and then we share the joy of words creating worlds with other poets, listeners and readers. Poetry is written to be read and to be heard, t is best when performed with music. My first, and most favorite musical accompanist is Rick Wilson, flautist extraordinaire, who can set the mood for each poem and describe its trajectory with his music played on a variety of flutes. I was so thrilled to perform my Awakenings poem inspired by Susan Dobay’s painting, City Whispers, with Rick, and you, and Jean Sudbury on the violin at Susan’s salon. It was a group improvisation of the highest caliber. Unfortunately, it was not recorded:  the poem is published in the On Awakening book. Rick played for all of my readings for Poets on Site at the Pacific Asia Museum that included the Illuminata (known as “I want that crown…”) – my humorous take on the Buddhist virtue of renunciation of the worldly riches. Rick was amazing on his Tibetan flute, as he was in many other performances, for instance A Box of Peaches and the recent Woman in Metaphor reading at Beyond Baroque. As one of the original members of Poets on Site, I participated in all Poets on Site  events and have poems in ALL Poets on Site books – this is a perfect marriage of poetry, music and art, by the way. Here’s your “telescope” answer, then, the perfect marriage…

A Compass to the Poet

KAW:  Your Polish roots are strong, and have been set into our local poetic world deeply and with vital expression. What have been the influences of both, the  activities, extensions and blends.

MT: I first read poetry in Polish and my Mom had a huge poetry collection at home in Warsaw, including Rilke, Miłosz, Szymborska, and bilingual editions of Guillaume Apollinaire and Arthur Rimbaud in Polish and French.  (She was learning French until she died in 2013, 13 years after being shot in a 2000 home invasion robbery, that also seriously wounded my father who died after a protracted illness in 2001). I inherited her love of poetry. Interestingly, Apollinaire was a Pole, born Wilhelm Albert Włodzimierz Apolinary Kostrowicki, and French was his second language. I still do not speak much French, but when I learned English, I started to read poetry in the original: I had three favorite poets, T.S. Eliot, E.E. Cummings  and Emily Dickinson. 

When I got a copy of Eliot’s Four Quartets from the composer Louis Andriessen, my artistic mentor, I copied its lines into notes and gave them as hand-made cards to people. These were so amazing: “the dove descending breaks the air,” “the end is where we start from” and “the fire and the rose are one.”  Spiritual themes are at the heart of my poetry – as in the Meditations on Divine Names anthology I edited in 2012. Then, the memory of my Polish childhood and its loss, the pain of homelessness that every immigrant feels – these are the basic themes of my poetry. I recently completed my third book of poems based on childhood memories of my parents and my own, lived in the long shadow of the war. It is called Slicing the Bread: A Children’s Survival Manual in 25 Poems and can be found on Finishing Line Press, with selected poems published in the San Gabriel Valley Poetry Quarterly, Poetry Magazine, Quill and Parchment, Poetry SuperHighway, and others.

Microphone to the Poet

KAW: You have been Poet-Laureate of Sunland- Tujunga, and continue as a gracious host of the Village Poets Reading series at Bolton Hall Museum each month. How does this factor in your life and community? What else in the community, especially Pasadena area has influenced and enlivened your work?

MT: I started writing poetry in English after I emigrated to Canada in 1988; the loss of the “ground under my feet” – my family, language, culture – was just too painful and my first hundred poems were the saddest ever written. It helped – even now I write poems or journal entries for psychotherapeutic reasons and never publish those poems or notes.  I continued after coming to California in 1996, trying to express the inexpressible in a language I started learning in my teens. When my daughter, Anna Harley Trochimczyk (USC Graduate and Ph.D. Candidate at UC Berkeley in Chemical Engineering and an accomplished jazz singer) asked me to enter the competition for the Poet Laureate of Sunland-Tujunga, I read my poems in public for the first time.

A year later, in 2008, I met you and a great poetic and artistic friendship was born. I’ve had many titles and wore many hats – Professor, Director, President – but that title of the Poet-Laureate, mine in 2010-2012, is still my favorite. (I was so delighted I wore a silly grin during most of my Passing of the Laurels ceremony, when I was crowned with an actual laurel wreath at the McGroarty Arts Center, a former home of California Poet Laureate John Steven McGroarty).

I marked my tenure with publication of two anthologies – one dedicated to the music of Chopin called Chopin with Cherries: A Tribute in Verse that saw numerous readings and concerts in the Foothills, Los Angeles and even Chicago, and another one about religion, the Meditations on Divine Names that included work of all four of former Poets-Laureate who form the core of the Village Poets. We put together the monthly readings in the Bolton Hall Museum in Tujunga, Los Angeles’s Historical Monument No. 2, built of river rocks in 1913. The readings were started during my tenure, but the credit goes to poets Dorothy Skiles, Joe  DeCenzo, and Marlene Hitt, plus our newest addition, current Poet Laureate, Elsa Frausto. I select and invite featured poets with the group’s approval and we rotate the duties of the host. We have one Featured Poet on each fourth Sunday of the month (no readings in December) and have presented many Pasadena poets, we are all a part of the Foothills, after all.

Metronome to the Poet

KAW: You are a music historian by education and inclination. What areas have you explored, what have been your adventures, encounters and how does it  relate to your art and poetry?

MT: I already mentioned the Chopin anthology – of 92 poets and an exploration of the music and life of Frederic (Fryderyk) Chopin (1810-1849) in 123 poems. The book was born from an invitation to the Second International Chopin Congress in Warsaw in 2010 – I hold a Ph.D. in music history and Chopin is among composers that I have often written about. (I have a bibliography of my writings on the website www.trochimczyk.net/bio.html.) All Polish people are raised on Chopin whose music became a symbol of national identity in the dark times of the partitions when the country was divided between Russia, Prussia and Austria for 123 years. Chopin’s music was banned by the Germans during World War II and his monument in Warsaw was destroyed. But we love him not for that, but for the deeply personal, intimate voice with which it speaks to each of us, “expressing the inexpressible” – I could say that my poetry tries to do the same. 

I wrote about so many topics and studied so many composers, from the 19^th to the 21^st century, that I became very hard to classify as a “specialist” that marks his/hers territory like the wolves or dogs mark theirs. I want to know, and I’m most excited when embarking upon a new topic. This intellectual curiosity and restlessness has taken me from the Western avant-garde (the topic of my doctorate on musical space and spatial music), that is Xenakis, Brant, and R. Murray Schafer, back to Bartok and Messiaen. This then led to birdsong and ecomusicology studies – I’m on the Board of the Ecomusicology Newsletter of the American Musicological Society. When I worked as Director of the USC Polish Music Center (1996-2004) I started publishing about Polish music –Bacewicz, Gorecki, Lutoslawski, Paderewski, Szymanowska and Chopin. I just finished co-editing Frederic Chopin – A Research and Information Guide for Routledge in New York, and a book on Witold Lutoslawski for the Polish Institute in Canada.  I’m also on the Board of the Polish American Historical Association documenting the immigrant experience.  Who knows what the future will bring.

Microscope on the Artist/Poet

KAW: What are interior qualities of your artistic  life? Why are you a poet? 

Poetry is a proof that I exist, that I feel, see, experience… I document my life in poetry: even when it is about others, I write about the way I see them. There is an enormous difference with music history: in my books and articles I write about what the others thought, imagined and did. In my poems, I write about what I think, imagine and do.  Poems come to me when I drive and I have to remember the lines until I can write them down. I call these my “freeway poetry.” I love my roses in my garden, I keep photographing them. I’m fascinated with the veins on the petals, veins on the leaves changing colors, shapes of river rocks. I even had a solo exhibition, thanks to the courtesy of Susan Dobay. I write about roses as the symbol of the core spiritual virtue in our lives: love in all of its incarnations. We do not celebrate the Valentine’s Day in Poland (or did not when I was growing up there, like there was no Halloween, but All Souls’ Day), but I wrote a series of meditations on love for my blog, illustrated with poems from my two books of love poetry, Miriam’s Iris, or Angels in the Garden and Rose Always – A Court Love Story.  Since both books were so personal, I did not want any editors to mess with them, and formed my own Moonrise Press in 2008. By now, the press issued seven books and keeps going – Ed Rosenthal, the L.A.’s original “poet-broker” was the most recently published, and Marlene Hitt, a witty and insightful poet from Sunland will be next.

Pulse of the Poet

KAW: You are a mother and also I know your professional work involves supporting and encouraging others to be creative. Can you elaborate, and show how this motivates and extends your creative work? 

MT: I love being a part of the poetry community in California. In addition to being the core member of Poets on Site and Village Poets, I belong to the group of eight Westside Women Writers, so named by Millicent Borges Accardi, our fearless leader.  I am active, sometimes, in the Southern California Haiku Study Group, and attend a variety of readings. My three children are scientists – Marcin graduated from USC with two computer science degrees and moved back to Poland, Ania is a chemical engineering and jazz singer, and Ian studies theoretical physics at UC Santa Barbara and has great hopes for the future.  They are not into poetry and are not the subjects or recipients of my poems, except for a couple of educational ones, about virtues.

These particular poems have proven very useful for my “day job” as the Senior Director of Planning and Research for Phoenix Houses of California. I occasionally organize poetry readings at our various rehabilitation facilities, with residents reading their own poems about their lives and recovery. Poetry is a great tool for therapy.  An unnamed trauma remains horrific, when you name and describe it, you put a limit to it, a border around it – you enclose it in words. That’s what I did after my parents were shot, I wrote about grief and loss. Many poems like that are not for publication during the poet’s lifetime. But you can sublimate the pain into art, and leave the details behind while capturing the essence…

For me it is that late afternoon, with the last golden-red rays of sunlight, and the nostalgic mood of the “waning of the day” – the farewell, the end of life, of time….  I talked about this and other issues in an interview with Lois P. Jones on Poets’ Café, featuring “Tiger Nights” inspired by a nightmare and a concert at the Hollywood Bowl. I wrote about the impossibility of stopping time, in the “Easter Apocalypsis” and the “Three Postcards from Paris ” (featured on Poetry L.A.)  You have to capture the moment, enjoy the here and now: like grains of sand, seconds and minutes slip through your fingers. And poof! We are gone.

A SAMPLE POEM

Moon Reality

I watched the Moon around the House 

Until upon a Pane –

She stopped –

                     ~ Emily Dickinson

Long nets of power lines

Stretch out to catch the orange

Ball of the moon that falls, falls, falls

Down to the horizon

It bounces off the mountaintops

A bright white pancake

That floats in silver sky

Above the freeway turning home

What is real? What imagined?

We are caught in the electric net

Of our own devising

Hypnotized

We stare at moving electrons in a black box

We smile at pictures

Looking straight into the eyes on the screen

We practice witticisms on the keyboard

For all to see, no one to hear

Illusion of connection

The flat pancake of full moon

Slides along the taunt wires

Over purple hills, deserted streets

I am going home

To gaze at my pale moon of a screen

Read my personal invitation

To Atlantis

SELECTED POEMS AND LINKS

Illuminata:

http://www.pacificasiamuseum.org/_visit/transcripts/50_himalayan.aspx

A Box of Peaches:

http://www.oldflutes.com/poetsonsite/ptfiles/gau.pdf

The Four Quartets: http://www.davidgorman.com/4Quartets

T.S. Eliot reading the Four Quartets. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ga8tQrG4ZSw

Slicing the Bread  http://poetrylaurels.blogspot.com/2014/07/finishing-line-press-to-publish-slicing.html

http://www.moonrisepress.com/divine.html

http://villagepoets.blogspot.com

PAHAnews.blogspot.com

Poets Café – http://www.timothy-green.org/blog/maja-trochimczyk/

Moonday Feature with three poems

http://www.moondaypoetry.com/maja-trochimczyk.htm

Poetry LA reading of Three Postcards from Paris https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVgHby3aKJw

Easter Apocalypsis - http://www.thescreamonline.com/poetry/poetry7-4/trochimczyk.html

moonrisepress.blogspot.com

www.moonrisepress.com/rosealways.html

www.trochimczyk.net/miriamiris.html