Aleksandra Kremer's excellent monograph falls short of easy labels. Its title and subtitle suggest that her research concerns mainly the acoustic aspects of post-war Polish poetry. In the course of reading, however, it turns out that her analyses of the selected recordings create surprising constellations and shed light on the development of Polish poetry, as well as on the historical and cultural changes that affected the writers’ self-awareness and the reception of their recordings. Kremer's book can therefore serve as a manual on the cultural and intellectual history of postwar Poland. Moreover, the conclusions she draws can be applied to non-Polish contexts, for her meticulous research demonstrates that it is likely to think of “Poland as a laboratory of poetry performance” (13).
Kremer discusses the worldwide cultural changes that, since the 1930s, have resulted in the gradual decline of the practice of authorial poetry readings within a narrow circle of friends and family. The spread of radio and then television, originally accompanied by the conviction of the superiority of the actor's recitation, caused the public reading of poetry to gain a more institutionalized character, separated from everyday life. The position of the poet was also changing. In modern sovereign states, a poet ceased to be a public figure who strengthen the sense of national community or reveal the injustice of the political system. She/he became a private person.
The case of Polish postwar poetry is exceptional. Soviet domination triggered a revival of the romantic model of the poet-prophet, in whom Polish readers recognized a guide who restores hope of liberation from the “house of bondage.” This imposed role of the seer disturbed post-war poets because it denied their individuality and sentenced them to simplified readings intended to serve the purpose of “the strengthening of hearts” (Henryk Sienkiewicz's phrase). A return to authorial poetry readings in a narrow circle of friends and experiments with private tape recording allowed artists to escape both the role of prophet and of traitor, whose public appearances legitimized the oppressive political system. These historical circumstances help Kremer narrow the scope of her research—she focuses on authorial performances, recordings usually prepared for family and friends or research institutions. In doing so, she additionally draws on the studies of Charles Bernstein, who argued that the interpretation of a poem should account not only for its textual record, but also for multiple authorial performances.
Kremer traces the transformations of the sound of modern Polish poetry in chronological order. She analyses recordings by Julian Tuwim, Czesław Miłosz, Miron Białoszewski, Wisława Szymborska, Aleksander Wat, Zbigniew Herbert, Anna Kamieńska, Anna Świrszczyńska and Tadeusz Różewicz. Additionally, she refers to recordings by Halina Poświatowska, Julia Hartwig, Julian Przyboś and Krystyna Miłobędzka to better capture the differences between various reading styles. We are therefore confronted with a comprehensive collection of poets, diverse in generation and aesthetic. The author also strives to mark the distinctiveness of the recordings of women poets, which diverges from the standard line of transformations, since in the postwar years Polish women artists were culturally marginalized, and a higher pitched voice was perceived as incorrect. As Kremer notes, recent recordings of Miłobędzka, however, prove that the poet's vulnerable, quiet voice can eventually attract an audience. It indicates an important shift in the cultural reception of women artists.
The analyses of recordings testify to Kremer's multiple research competencies. The variety of approaches to the “sound of Polish poetry” is almost overwhelming—her research is based on extensive knowledge of poetics, linguistics, history of Polish literature, biographies of specific authors (including anecdotes like the one on Stanisław Barańczak whose broken leg was perceived as a testimony of his national martyrdom), and sound research methodology, complemented by proficiency in using the Praat program, which allows for the objectivization of auditory impressions regarding the intensity, pitch, and duration of a sound. There is, however, a method to this madness. Her eclectic research perspective brings many discoveries and explains certain properties of the poetic worlds of the writers under study. This is best seen in the passages on Wat. The close listening of “Ode III” proves that the oral version of the poem is an independent work, and the surprising pronunciation of the noun “skórą” (skin) introduces religious overtones of lamentation. Only few conclusions by Kremer I find unconvincing. Can Różewicz's “unbeautiful reading” really be considered as experimental and revolutionary in terms of broadening the limits of poetry? The differences in Różewicz's performances seem rather random to me, while his “meta-poetic” comments are probably fueled by coyness.
