Bruno Jasieński

Bruno Jasieński Poems

- Nickelodeon -
A freckled maid in a white polka-dot shirt.
Someone slender, with a vengeance.
- Will you come?… - "I can't…"
...

I will no longer praise another lady
nor caress her name in any form of verse
not since I saw you there the first time
in that strange and unseen city's universe
...

The propeller's hymn to Heredia's words,
To words once lost in inky fog…
I played one of my comedies for her
Us two suspended in airy smog.
...

Bruno Jasieński Biography

Bruno Jasieński (17 July 1901 – died 17 September 1938, in Butyrka prison, Moscow) was a Polish poet and leader of the Polish futurist movement, executed during the Polish operation of the NKVD in the Soviet Union. Wiktor (Bruno) was born to a Polish family of Zysmans with Jewish and German roots, but from his mother's side he was a descendant of nobility (Pol. szlachta). His father, Jakub Zysman, was a local doctor and a social worker, member of the local intelligentsia. He converted to Protestantism, mostly to be able to marry a Catholic girl, Eufemia Maria Modzelewska, a Polish noble, member of the Modzelewski family of the Bończa coat of arms, with whom he had three children: Wiktor (pen name Bruno Jasieński), Jerzy and Irena. Today one of the streets of Klimontów is named after him. Little is known of Jasieński's early life, especially as he did not describe it in his works. He attended high school in Warsaw, but didn't finish it. In 1914 his family moved to Russia, where Bruno graduated from the secondary school in Moscow. There, his fascination with Igor Severyanin's ego-futurism started, followed by lectures of Velimir Chlebnikov, Vladimir Mayakovsky and Alexiey Kruchonykh's Visual poems. In 1918, after Poland regained its independence, Bruno returned to Kraków, where he applied for a position in the philosophical faculty of the Jagiellonian University. However, he suspended his studies to join the volunteer unit of the Polish Army and took part in the disarming of Austrian and German soldiers. After the Polish-Soviet War (February 1919 – March 1921), he returned to University and studied at various faculties (including philosophy, law and Polish literature). He also became one of the founders of a club of futurists named Katarynka (Hurdy-gurdy). In 1921 Jasieński published one of his first futurist works, Nuż w bżuchu (Nayf in the Abdomen, with intentionally wrong spelling of title) and, together with Stanisław Młodożeniec became known as one of the founders of the Polish Futurist movement. The same year he published a number of other works, including manifestos, leaflets, posters and all kinds of new art, formerly unknown in Poland. Also, a volume of poems entitled But w butonierce (Shoe in a Buttonhole), published in Warsaw. The same year he gained much fame as an enfant terrible of Polish literature and was well received by the critics in many Polish cities, including Warsaw and Lwów, where he met other notable writers of the epoch. Among them were Marian Hemar, Tytus Czyżewski, Aleksander Wat and Anatol Stern. He also collaborated with various newspapers including the leftist Trybuna Robotnicza, Nowa Kultura and Zwrotnica. In 1922 another of his works was published, the Pieśń o głodzie (Song of Hunger), followed by 1924 Ziemia na lewo (Earth Leftwards). In 1923 he married Klara Arem, daughter of a notable merchant from Lwów. They moved to France, where they settled in Paris in Passage Poissonniere. The couple lived a humble life, making ends meet as journalists and correspondents of various Polish newspapers. Although Bruno Jasieński did not seek contacts with the local Polonia, together with Zygmunt Modzelewski he formed an amateur theatre for the Polish worker Diaspora living in Saint Denis. He also wrote numerous poems, essays and books, many of which were quite radical. In 1928 he serialised the work which secured his reputation, Palę Paryż, a futurist novel depicting the collapse and decay of the city and social tensions within the capitalist societies in general, in the leftist L'Humanité newspaper in a French version, Je brûle Paris(I Burn Paris), which was quickly translated into Russian. The following year (1929) the original Polish text was published in Warsaw. The novel was also a humorous reply to Paul Morand's pamphlet I Burn Moscow published shortly before. The novel gained Jasieński much fame in France, but also became the main reason why he was deported from the country. Not admitted to Belgium and Luxembourg, he stayed in Frankfurt am Main for a while and – when the extradition order had been withdrawn – returned to France only to be expelled once more for communist agitation.)

The Best Poem Of Bruno Jasieński

They Ran Him Over

- Nickelodeon -
A freckled maid in a white polka-dot shirt.
Someone slender, with a vengeance.
- Will you come?… - "I can't…"
Hop!
Cars. Platforms. Cabs.
A rolling filmstrip
Grumbling across the stretch of dried asphalt.
- Wait… - "No, no, don't ask, I could give in…"

Ding! Ding!!
A red tram pulls out of the alley.
One. Two.
They pass each other at a distance.
The ominous song of polished rails…
A small man in a drab coat…
Crrrrrash!!!
Stopppp!!
Brakes!
Ahhhhhhhhh!!
They ran him over! They ran him over!!

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