I fell asleep in my chair
and woke up twelve hours later—
or so it seemed when I looked at the clock—
even though only a few minutes had passed;
such is the relativity of time.
Does the same apply to the last thirty years of my life?
Well, I could try it with a fricassee
of temps and durée, seasoned with Gewesenheit,
but in the end nothing beats the Minute of Agreement.
After all, the philosopher-king had long since lost
to the solicitor.
More words to ponder at maciejmodzelewski.com
Every author and every artist has a method. I called mine dissectology—derived from dissectologist, that is, someone enjoying jigsaw puzzle assembly—because the way I worked with words was like putting together a jigsaw puzzle with one fundamental difference—each piece of the puzzle came from a different box.
How did it look in practice? Every time, while reading, watching a film, or having a conversation, I came across a word or phrase that resonated with me—or, as I called it, sounded delicious—I wrote it down in my notebook. Sometimes it took a while, but eventually I had enough material to start playing with it.
At first, it looked like a pile of random words, but my mind quickly started combining them into phrases, then sentences, and at last, there it was—a new poem. Sounds simple, right? But it’s not. Although this is an exception, writing a certain poem took me nine months and required researching the life and work of Martin Heidegger. I joked later that it had been a busy pregnancy with a difficult labour.
And here is the thing: at some point, I felt like a fraud. I wasn’t a creator, but a mere puzzle assembler. True, with a bit of creativity, but in the end, there was no point that I had in mind that I tried to convey with my words—well, not always, as sometimes I actually wanted to say something in particular, but this was the exception, not the norm. Socrates’ words about poets truly reflect the nature of my little play.
