"Monster," by Polish poet Dariusz Sosnicki was published in the July 29 issue of The New Yorker. The poem--about a train carrying children away from their parents for a summer vacation, as it transforms into a ravenous monster--comes from BOA's forthcoming spring 2014 translation The World Shared, by Sosnicki and translated by Piotr Florczyk and Boris Dralyuk.
MONSTER
The train, which I took back across the great plain, I tell you, it was a monster with a swollen belly.
It had a lair in Pulawy, ravened in Warsaw; children greeted it and it swallowed them.
Now they’re playing together— the boys from the blocks, the girls with matches, Aesculapius in a palaestra.
Their parents have managed to toss each one a toy: hamsters in an aquarium, a PlayStation and a stamp album.
The parents are getting older, longing consumes them, now it’s they who come to greet the travelers.
They look at their watches through dark glasses, and would like to light up, but where’s the fire?
Until the icebreaker “Sadness” weighs anchor. Until the Summer School of Common Language begins.
I was there, I know what I’m saying, it was a thick monster— the train, which I took back across the great plain.
Dariusz Sosnicki, Poetry, “Monster,” The New Yorker, July 29, 2013, p. 52
