Zbigniew Herbert's "From Mythology"

The Daily Poem

Goldberry Studios

Education For Kids, Arts, Kids & Family

4.6 • 729 Ratings

🗓️ 28 August 2023

⏱️ 8 minutes

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Summary

Today’s poem is by Zbigniew Herbert (IPA: [ˈzbiɡɲɛf ˈxɛrbɛrt] (listen); 29 October 1924 – 28 July 1998), a Polish poet, essayist, drama writer and moralist. He is one of the best known and the most translated post-war Polish writers.[1][2] While he was first published in the 1950s (a volume titled Chord of Light was issued in 1956), soon after he voluntarily ceased submitting most of his works to official Polish government publications. He resumed publication in the 1980s, initially in the underground press. Since the 1960s, he was nominated several times for the Nobel Prize in Literature.[3] His books have been translated into 38 languages.[4]

Herbert claimed to be a distant relative of the 17th-century Anglo-Welsh poet George Herbert.[5]

—Bio via Wikipedia

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome back to the Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios.
0:04.4	I'm Sean Johnson, and today is Monday, August 28, 2023.
0:10.0	Today's poem is by Zvignev Herbert, and it is entitled From Mythology.
0:19.0	I'll read it once, offer a few comments, and then read it one more time.
0:24.2	From mythology.
0:28.2	First, there was a god of night and tempest, a black idol without eyes,
0:34.0	before whom they leaped naked and smeared with blood.
0:38.0	Later on, in the times of the Republic,
0:41.5	there were many gods with wives, children,
0:44.3	creaking beds and harmlessly exploding thunderbolts.
0:47.9	At the end, only superstitious neurotics carried in their pockets
0:51.5	little statues of salt, representing the god of irony.
0:56.1	There was no greater god at that time.
1:00.2	Then came the barbarians.
1:03.2	They too valued highly the little god of irony.
1:07.3	They would crush it under their heels and add it to their dishes.
1:16.9	Zabigny Herbert is a 20th century Polish poet.
1:22.2	It's also an essayist, and sometimes he's considered something of a moralist.
1:29.1	He began writing and publishing his poetry in the 1950s to some early acclaim,
1:36.9	but he quickly grew tired of having to pass all of his writings through the official censors of the Polish government.
1:48.2	And eventually, he just stopped publishing his poetry altogether.
1:55.9	In the intervening years, he continued to write poetry, but he kept it to himself or he circulated
	...

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