Socrates—or Platocrates, as my old friend used to call him—said that ‘not by wisdom do poets write poetry, but by a sort of genius and inspiration; they are like diviners or soothsayers who also say many fine things but do not understand the meaning of them’. Ever since I read this passage from the Apology, I have been pursued by these words. What has been said seems to suggest that poets, reduced to some kind of unconscious transmitter—a device made of flesh and bone—didn’t really succeed as artists. What’s more, they actually failed as humans.
It all goes back to what Roman Ingarden called ‘Konkretisation’, that is, realisation. Following Wolfgang Iser’s explanation, there is more to the ‘literary work’ than just the text itself—it is brought into existence by both the text and its realisation by the reader. So here I am, a poet, although I have always believed that when I finish writing a poem, I stop being an author and simply become another reader.
I’m Maciej Modzelewski, and I’ve been writing poetry for over thirty years. I was born in Poland, but for the last twenty years I’ve lived in Scotland. My early poems, written in Polish, were published in Akcent, a leading Polish literary magazine, in 2013. By then, I had already emigrated—and looking back, I realise those poems marked a quiet farewell to that part of my creative life. I no longer write in Polish. Now I write exclusively in English.
English isn’t my native language, but I’ve grown into it. I wear it like a coat—never quite skin, but warm enough, and with enough pockets to carry ideas and metaphors across cultural boundaries. My work explores the spaces between languages, identities, and states of being. Through recurring characters like Mr Honk—and previously Mr Nothing—I examine what it means to exist in the margins, to be neither fully here nor there, to speak in a tongue that became more yours than your original one.
I don’t chase poetic truths or grand revelations. I write short, thoughtful pieces that try to leave space—for uncertainty, for irony, for the reader to step in. My poetry is populated with philosophical echoes from Socrates to Unamuno, literary conversations spanning from ancient Greek to contemporary voices, and the daily observations of an emigrant mind. I explore themes of exile, identity, mortality, and the strange comedy of being human in an increasingly absurd world.
Though poetry is my primary form, I’ve also written vignettes, monologues, and what I call ‘exercises in controlled foolishness’. Some of these live quietly on this blog, others—like my satirical farewell to Polishness—have cost me friendships and closed chapters. I’ve kept journals, written about masculinity, dabbled in fiction, and coded my way through software as well. Language, in all its forms, is how I try to make sense of the world.
This blog, Hidden Pilcrow, is mostly for my poetry. Occasionally you’ll find prose pieces, or a stray post about software development—another language I happen to speak, though with fewer metaphors. Writing has always been how I try to think clearly, or at least make the confusion more articulate.
So if you’re wandering too—between languages, identities, or ideas—you might feel at home here. My work doesn’t offer answers, but it asks the kinds of questions that make the asking worthwhile. Welcome to this small corner of measured bewilderment.
And if you’d like to get in touch, feel free to use this form.
CREDITS: The image for this text and in the header of the blog were created using AI (Bing Image Creator at https://bing.com/create).
Disclaimer:
The material on this blog—including poetry, vignettes, and personal reflections—is a form of creative expression. While some writings may draw upon lived experience, they are presented through a literary lens. Names, characters, and events have been altered, imagined, or anonymised. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental or used symbolically. Interpretations are the reader’s own.
Copyright Notice
All written content on this site is the original work of Maciej Modzelewski and is protected by copyright. If you’d like to share or republish anything, please get in touch first—I’m happy to discuss permission, especially for non-commercial or academic uses.
Images and graphics, unless otherwise noted, are generated using AI tools—primarily Bing Image Creator and the AI image generator provided by WordPress.com—or sourced from WordPress’s free stock library.
Literary Will
In the event of my death, I hereby declare that all of my written work—published or unpublished—shall be made available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). This includes all poetry, prose, essays, and any other textual work authored by me. Anyone may share, adapt, and use these works freely, provided they give appropriate credit to me as the original author.
This declaration excludes any individual works that are, at the time of my death, under exclusive publishing contracts or bound by separate legal agreements.
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