Diplomatic Rebel on Creaky Bicycle

View other editions of Diplomatic Rebel on Creaky Bicycle.
View books by Wojciech Plocharski.

REVIEW OF WOJCIECH PLOCHARSKI’S POETRY - Rated
Wojciech Plocharski as a poet creates a unique joy through an artistic creation of beauty. Several poems included in Million In My Pocket, Faster Than Light And Other Tales, and Diplomatic Rebel On Creaky Bicycle describe some irresistibly real and attractive mood or passion, some most enchanting fact of life. As an artist, Plocharski is most convincing and most alive when he is ‘scenting the world, looking it full in face’. But he reminds us “ No, no, no-don’t think I’m a weight-lifter’ (“Saddling Time”, Diplomatic Rebel On Creaky Bicycle). “Shell’s V-Power 95” reveals ‘how to move forward in literature’:

You need not write thick books to understand how to move forward in literature.
The most important is fuel.
Diplomatic Rebel On Creaky Bicycle, p. 11

Plocharski’s mind seizes and stores up numberless feelings and images, and he is able to convert the ‘fuel’ to his witty and satiric portrayal of the distempers and ‘the strange disease of modern life’ (Matthew Arnold), and ‘the immense panorama of futility and anarchy which is contemporary history’ (T. S. Eliot).

Plocharski’s excellence lies in the fact that he is “on the move \ For next centuries” (“Saddling Time”). The fundamental and indispensable thing required for any kind of freedom and progress is avoidance of “talk tall behind iron curtain”:

Tall Orators! If you do not raise the curtain,
You will not hear theatre ovation!
“Tall Talk Theatre”, Diplomatic Rebel On Creaky Bicycle, p.18

Plocharski is always lifted up with the vigour of his own style. This is visible in the energy and passion of his flawless phraseology and precision of language in Faster Than Light And Other Bagatelles:

‘Toothless biting is a kind of kiss’.
‘Amateurishness-weapon of mass destruction’.
‘Their manipulations are sewn with so thick thread
That we couldn’t clean our teeth using it.’
‘Promote women. You will limit weight of ayatollahs…’

The essential fact to remember about Plocharski’s poetry is that he sets his mind free to expand its inner powers, and consequently we feel that Fancy ‘glows divinely there’ in such lines: ‘We cannot isolate anything that we don’t understand…
What about starry sky?’(“Starry-Eyed Robots”)

No doubt, Plocharski’s poetry penetrates, and reaches truths through hallowing power of imagination, which is a ‘prophetic action of the mind’. Poetry, says F. R. Leavis, “can communicate the actual quality of experience with a subtlety and precision unapproachable by any means.” This is evident in Plocharski’s Million In My Pocket. These poems have an undeniable force and enlarge our conception of imaginative adventure. I trust that the new century would recognize the presence of genius and inspiration in such lines: ‘Closed at hand, army of ants \ crowds in plundered library’s \ inside (“Barcelona Abstraccio”}, “Looking down we see \ we are in a different world’ ( Peaks of Caucasus”), ‘We leave the city with invisible arrows’ ( “Piccadily”}, ‘My cap is on my head, but thoughts among the clouds’ ( “Andersen’s Hat” ). “Peaks of Caucasus” makes us aware of the horror of war:

The ruins and debris of destructions.
Their roofs are already overgrown
By vegetation. Practically,
There aren’t houses
Without traces of bullets on gates.
… … …
The dust-everywhere.

The title poem “Million In My Pocket” is a profound comment on the creative powers of the ‘pen’:

My secret is simple.
I have a pen.

The psychic drama of the whole Million In My Pocket is enclosed within these two lines. Plocharski’s energy, passion and satirical power reveal that he is undoubtedly a powerful force in world poetry, and one of the most individual poets.

-Santosh Kumar