Poems for Pussy Riot: Genowefa Jakubowska-Fijalkowska translated by Marek Kazmierski

On 13 September, English PEN launched ‘Poems for Pussy Riot‘ in support of three members of the Russian punk band – Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich – who are currently serving a two year prison sentence. We will be posting poems dedicated to Nadezdha, Maria and Yekaterina in the weeks leading up to their appeal hearing on 1 October.

The following contribution is a piece by Genowefa Jakubowska-Fijalkowska, translated by Marek Kazmierski.

Marek writes of Genowefa Jakubowska–Fijalkowska: “a voice howling with fire and indignation, raising hell in an already hellish post-communist Polish environment – giving voice to women, children, artists, ethnic minorities, the elderly, the impoverished and the wild – in fact anyone for whom poetry should speak. Born in 1946 in Mikołów, she has published over seven collections of poetry. Her poems have been anthologised and published by all the major literary journals in Poland, and have been translated into Czech, Slovene, German, English and Russian. Having twice been awarded the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, she still lives and works in Mikołów.”

We Jew women

Judyta Sara Batszewa with bruised eyes strangulation marks cross the neck

thighs branded with boot prints

Polish Ewa a Jew down in Warsaw’s canals

you: to your husband faithful your lover

Jew woman reading writing poetry drinking beer

then:

looking for her son on street corners in each and every supermarket car park

me: Anne Frank my ribs collapsed no breasts only nipples and hunger and these diaries

and our Jewish fears

Poems for Pussy Riot posts

Poems for Pussy Riot – an introduction to the project