Sequin bottom

Ewa Jarocka

“Dno cekina” (The Bottom of a Sequin), published by the Tymoteusz Karpowicz Foundation, is the second poetry collection by Ewa Jarocka, a Wrocław-based poet considered a poetic discovery of 2016. The book comprises forty-nine poems, written in a new, more classical poetic style for the author. The reader’s role is also much more active, placed in various situations and encouraged to react, primarily ethically. The poems largely draw on the difficulties and dilemmas faced by their author, but they lead to an attempt to objectively describe contemporary times.

The persona, or rather personas, speaking in these poems, captivate with a fresh voice in Polish poetry, not attempting to imitate any established poets, full of charm, surprising the reader with something incredibly direct. The range of emotions served to the reader here is very broad, even striking. The juxtaposition of the author's personal problems with the great problems of the contemporary world in such a direct and surprising way gives the reader the impression of opening a window in an already somewhat stale poetic world. Pedophilia, homelessness, armed conflicts appear here in new contexts. The reader is sometimes even forced to actively try to disintegrate their own way of seeing reality. And they must even "re-process" - for their own use - moral and aesthetic dilemmas, including the categories of "good" and "evil."

“Dno cekina” is a book in which we once again have to confront ourselves. And that is probably its greatest value. Ewa Jarocka - well, she was born. She lives, works and writes. Sometimes she draws. Also poems. Usually about misfortunes. In the volume titled "Dno cekina", however, she happens to be happy. Perhaps she just forgets herself. A year has passed since her debut. That's why she is afraid that something bad will come of it. Although in her new poems she doesn't rhyme and, according to her first readers, they are better than those from the volume about bad people, she knows how it is with this wretched human. There are no good people. And especially critics. Everyone is hideous, worse than death. Not necessarily because Ewa fears closeness. After all, she doesn't always send signals: Do not approach. I bite. Screw you. Ewa can also be nice. Especially to publishers. She is grateful, lets herself be petted, reveals her secrets to them. That "Dno cekina" is something impossible, she would gladly dedicate her poems to it, but that has already happened. That "Dno cekina" is also an attempt to see depth in what is flat, although she only overheard that and repeats it. And although her publishers know this, but don't admit it because they are nice - that no poetess (and even less so a male poet) before her revealed her bra size in poems. But she is far from a 75Z! Ewa doesn't plan to talk about the latter with strangers. Not even with those who won't refrain from malicious comments in the future.

So "Dno cekina" is her return. It's the second volume with which she'd like everything, and above all, for her need for memory to be respected. Also for what is small and funny, like a dream about a rabbit. Like her passion for looking at herself in the mirror and suspecting priests of the worst. It's just her way that sometimes paranoid thinking kicks in. She thinks now that strangers will accuse her of having given her freedom to the devil, not to poetry.