Pandemia’s Box

or"Behindtinned" Poems

PANDEMIA’S BOX

OR

"BEHINDTINNED" POEMS

written and illustrated by students of the literature class with the guidance of Dorota

Krystosiak, MA

In alphabetical order:

Andżelika Bondzior, Malwina Dziombra, Paulina Gawkowska,

Kinga Gęstwa, Sandra Hajdziony, Maja Hamada, Magdalena

Horbaczewska, Hubert Kiciński, Lilianna Kłos, Maja Kosidło,

Joanna Lubecka, Klaudia Masiewicz, Kinga Nikonowicz, Marta

Stawicka, Michał Sutuła, Aleksandra Szyszko, Olga Wawrzyniak

editor and cover designer- Lilianna Kłos

Contents

Publisher’s Note 4 ...................................................................................

Chapter I- Home sweet home? 5 ............................................................

Andżelika Bondzior - „Coronavirus” 6 .......................................................

Joanna Lubecka - „ Waiting” 8 ....................................................................

Malwina Dziombra - „ Lockdown 2020” 9 .................................................

Sandra Hajdziony - „Dear Cellmates…” 10 .................................................

Maja Hamada- „ 4 walls” 10 ..........................................................................

Maja Kosidło - „ Infinity is just a time” 11 ....................................................

Chapter 2- Behind the Window 12 .........................................................

Aleksandra Szyszko - „ 2020” 13 ...................................................................

Olga Wawrzyniak - „Outside the window” 14 ............................................

Maja Kosidło - „ What a man needs” 15 ......................................................

Marta Stawicka - „ Two Objects” 16 ............................................................

Magdalena Horbaczewska - „Birds in a sterile cage” 18 ...........................

Chapter 3- Step into the New Reality 20 ...............................................

Kinga Gęstwa - „ Passing through” 21 .........................................................

Hubert Kiciński - „First Day of the Outbreak” ; „ Lockdown” ; „ Going Outside” ; „The Sun” 22 ..................................................................

Michał Sutuła - „Masks of anxiety” 24 ........................................................

Klaudia Masiewicz - „ New Venice” 25 .........................................................

Paulina Gawkowska - „The tram” ; „Irony” 26 ...........................................

Chapter 4- Ode to the Virus 28 ..............................................................

Kinga Nikonowicz - „ Virus” 29 ....................................................................

Lilianna Kłos - „(IN)VISIBILITY” 30..........................................................

Publisher’s Note

I didn’t expect that in the 21st there would be a time, when a window pane will be a bigger attraction than a computer screen. I also didn’t expect that writing poems by students as homework for American literature class could ever work out. So, I came to the conclusion, that there are two ways to interpret it. The first one is that I should set higher expectations for the world and the second one that thanks to coronavirus, we started to appreciate things that we had not even noticed before. Following the first one would be however too risky and could end up very differently (e.g. mental breakdown, depression, suicide etc.), so I believe that the second explanation of these events is much more convincing. This whole isolation and quarantine thing gave us the opportunity to look at the world through the eyes of imagists. Just as they did, we could notice the beauty of „silver and yellow gleam the clouds and the sun”, the warm of „ lemon-yellow afternoon sunlight”, the scent of „ gold crocus-petals” or „blue and gold-veined hyacinths”, and enjoy being „ lost amid greenness” and „death-pale mist” . *

LK

Quotes come from selected poems written by John Gould Fletcher, Richard *

Aldington, Ezra Pound and Amy Lowell.

Chapter I- Home sweet home?

There was nothing to see, Nothing to do,

Nothing to play with, Except that in an empty room upstairs

There was a large tin box

Richard Aldington "Childhood"

Andżelika Bondzior - „Coronavirus”

Coronavirus

I am sitting alone and I don’t know what to think

Like a child lost in the forest.

Outside I can see only birds,

deserted streets, empty park benches- hungry for love.

I miss my life, I miss my freedom

Like a prisoner serving his sentence.

All day in pijamas, no aim, panic around,

I hear only admonitions gloves! masks!

I need so much my friends,

I need summer’s sun.

I look in the calendar, the next month is over

I am waiting for a lying in a clover.

Now only hope accompanies my evenings

Not to go crazy is not easy.

Joanna Lubecka - „ Waiting”

Waiting

The days pass,

the people are locked in the house,

and what we are hiding from,

does not allow us to be calm.

Thus we feel like birds in

a cage that cracks down on us.

We try to survive

in new reality alive.

It's act of God,

it's last-ditch ballad,

which defines our

getting through the line.

Malwina Dziombra - „ Lockdown 2020”

Lockdown 2020

one bat millions unemployed

two months I’ve cut my hair

home office waiting for connection

8am class oatmeal in my mouth

people going crazy

let me out

Sandra Hajdziony - „Dear Cellmates…”

Dear Cellmates, who has right to judge What hurts us so much

Workplaces without people

Streets without crowds

Families without money Or families without love?

Maja Hamada- „ 4 walls” 4 walls

Toilet, breakfast, computer, dinner, computer, bed

Can’t feel anything but me

Always insatiable desire for elusive

The fourth one whispers “you will never run away”

Maja Kosidło - „ Infinity is just a time”

Infinity is just a time

I took that one book I was always afraid to read.

It was too long and too old.

I read it and it felt like infinity.

I read about love and betrayal.

I read about woman, who didn’t want her child.

About the Moon and a man, who was killed in his shadow.

There was also a siren and a pirate.

But then I realized it was only a week.

So I took another one and another...

Now I know that I have more time than books

Chapter 2- Behind the Window

The sky is blue and high. A crow flaps by the window, and there is a whiff of tulips and

narcissus in the air.

"Spring Day" Amy Lowell

Aleksandra Szyszko - „ 2020”

2020

White-green trees, first buzzes of bees, warm wind

Silence

Standing by the window

With vague memories of being together

And hope for the future to be like the past

Olga Wawrzyniak - „Outside the window”

Outside the window

A spring ray of sunshine wakes me up. It is high time to get up.

I see the furry tail at the end of the bed.

And a black and white paw full of majesty and laziness. It moves.

I fell a brush of a moustache on my cheek.

It is a little bit wet and is curling up as if trying to smile.

I see the window and clouds that not predict the rain.

The sound of the wind moves the withered leaves of the beeches and spruces.

And I am sitting in the window with a cat looking outside.

Maja Kosidło - „ What a man needs” What a man needs

“You have what I need!” - I called to the man.

I called to him through the door, the wall, the tree, the road sign

and through the window.

“I know but it’s a lot to ask these days. Is my voice not enough?” -

he answered.

He answered through the window, the road sign, the tree, the wall

and through the door.

And it was more than enough.

Hello

Hello

Hello

Marta Stawicka - „ Two Objects”

Two Objects

Complaining about not being at home stopped.

Complaining about being at home started.

Life contains two objects that now became more important than

ever.

Extensive window reaching every corner of the modern world.

Silent furniture carrying decisions of different calibre.

I sympathise with our tired eyeballs.

I sympathise with our twisted spines.

Will we recover or have we just got another chance for

redemption?

Magdalena Horbaczewska - „Birds in a sterile cage”

Birds in a sterile cage

They sit there,

Tweeting like in a song,

Chirping in a sphere,

Where you wouldn’t last for long.

But the rescue is here,

Not so far away,

You may even say near,

When you look during the day.

A perfect view

Of what they haven’t appreciated yet,

Now seems to be new,

Although it has been already met.

The glossy sun, the fluffy cloud,

And the colorful flowers at last,

The scene that instantly wowed,

As if there was a blast.

Such view out this window,

Just like from behind the bars,

Gives them hope not to be a weirdo,

When the lockdown will be behind us.

Chapter 3- Step into the New Reality

I do not heed the city any more, It has given me a duty to perform.

I pass along nonchalantly, Insinuating myself into self-baffling movements.

John Gould Fletcher

Kinga Gęstwa - „ Passing through”

Passing through

We pass through the days

Loosing sense of date

Searching for new ways

To play with the fate

And as we stop for a while

To look closer at our reality

We see that it's been a mile

In fighting with mortality.

And we still pass through

Without noticing what's happening

Without seeing this surrounding view

Of constantly thriving spring .

Hubert Kiciński - „First Day of the Outbreak” ; „ Lockdown” ; „ Going Outside” ; „The Sun”

Lockdown

Futility of life

Death approaching

Sitting in the room

Feeling powerless

Listening to the wind

Is that all that life offers?

First Day of the Outbreak

Holding handrail on a tram

in absolute silence

Faces are covered, hung down.

Impending doom

Despair, Anger, Confusion and Fear

-Four horsemen in action.

Humanity threatened

Going Outside

The first step on the grass

The first breath of fresh air

The first sunbeam on the skin

The first tree on the horizon

Do I now experience the real

gratitude for life?

The Sun

Move me into the Sun

Every sunray is precious

The divine power of Helios

Cure for everyday sorrows

Michał Sutuła - „Masks of anxiety”

Masks of anxiety

People feared of the lockdown

With the masks on their faces,

And the hearts full of anxiety

Klaudia Masiewicz - „ New Venice”

New Venice

spring all of us playing hide-and-seek

without seek

ordinary forsythia ordinary magnolia tree

a stray bee a starving dog masquerade

an empty ballroom amid the uneven pavements

an invitation you rather ignore

And only your eyes gleaming

waiting for ordinary forsythia

ordinary magnolia tree a stray bee

a starving dog no masquerade

Paulina Gawkowska - „The tram” ; „Irony”

The tram

Standing with head down

Eyes- so vigilant

Having a handrail in the tram

As the greatest fear

Irony

Desperately pursuing a talk

Crazy with precision of his thoughts

Sunk in uselessness

In the modern world

of the modern needs.

Desire the same like Adam’s and Eve’s

Getting achievements of civilization

Sunk in isolation, sunk

In irony

He has never been more free.

Chapter 4- Ode to the Virus

For me, You stand poised

In the blue and buoyant air, Cinctured by bright winds,

Treading the sunlight.

"Venus Transiens" Amy Lowell

Kinga Nikonowicz - „ Virus” Virus

The day is sunny, the day is bright

The day tempts people to go out,

The sun's rays touch fleetingly the road,

light all trees, light all buildings.

But there is nobody on the street,

It is as silent as the grave,

Sadness and helplessness seize people,

what is going on?

Something is in the air,

Something lies in wait,

all people makes helpless,

However invisible, has no gun, does not speak,

but fear and havoc wreaks, drives people crazy,

it makes a sacrifice of each one,

each one can be used to spread destruction and anxiety.

Lilianna Kłos - „(IN)VISIBILITY”

(IN)VISIBILITY

Trying to memorize the sound of bumblebee buzzing

and take as a souvenir the smell of the blossoming lilac,

I suddenly saw

A

Bristly

Prickly

light purple

thistle

Entangling my ankle

I don’t know even how, when and why I let myself get trapped

like that.

A visible, but silent danger.

Then in the air

(the same „blue and buoyant” as it used to be before) †

I Suddenly felt that

it

had shown up supposedly

A

Bristly

Prickly

light purple….

Giving us the shudder

Little

Stupid

Bugger

Attempting to entangle my soul

An invisible, but very loud danger.

Amy Lowell- „Venus Transiens”†

Copyright © 2020 by students of the literature class and their dear

teacher Mrs. Dorota Krystosiak

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Reference list

Photo by Filippo Andolfatto on Unsplash Adam Patrzyk (h.ps://www.weranda.pl/sztuka-zycia/artysci/krajobrazy-duszy-adama-patrzyka) h.ps://pl.dreams@me.com/ilustracji-dekoruj%C4%85cy-wenecki-karnawa%C5%82-dowcipni%C5%9B-maska-z-dzwonami-i-b%C5%82yskotliwo%C5%9B%C4%87-image96276504