Wojciech Plocharski’s poetry is an admirable step to a new renaissance and a new type of aesthetic experience. His poems are cunningly worked out in patterns of large vision and flexibility of style. His Faster Than light And Other Bagatelles includes images and phrases which are epigrammatic and full of wit. For example:

Manipulation is "Throwing titbits to imitators".
A big newspaper under a pup. ("Fate of Garrulity")
I make bow to it
inclining my head to wrist-watch everyday. ("Time Is My Deity")

After reading such lines:

Idle towns, where no other idea of life exists
except children and malicious confabulations on neighbours theme.
("Calmness Of Province")

we are reminded of T.S. Eliot’s famous line in The Waste Land "What shall we ever do?" Calmness of Province is full of horror since no ‘idea of life’ is present and visible in the ‘Idle towns’ which permit no escape. The towns today have turned into a nightmare, since they are burning in the fire of boredom and ennui. Even TV news ‘edited by officials’, these "Adventures of officials" fail to bring any respite or comfort to the postmodern society ("Faces Of Boredom").

His another collection Million in My Pocket makes us aware of the arid and dry plane of modern civilization with ironic effect. Plocharski is satirizing the mar-mongers in "Peaks of Caucasus": "Three military helicopters…After almost two-hour flight land in hell.’’ "The dust is everywhere". "Looking down we see \ we are in a different world". It is obvious that the poet is criticizing the anarchy and futility of contemporary world. The insistence throughout this poem is Plocharski’s hatred towards war. The beautiful landscapes and divinely attractive hills and peaks of Caucasus will be inevitably left behind;

…the next day hell
will move not distant Beslan and unchain
there

No doubt, Plocharski’s chief merit lies in presenting a richly ironical and satirical record of the violently disordered contemporary world. But his satire, though full of exuberant poetic fervour, is gentle, and inflicts no wounds:

No wounds, no sadness,
A poem is able to love.
"A poem is Able", Diplomatic Rebel On Creaky Bicycle
Life of idealists concentrates round authorities.
You only need to weaken these points.
"Points of Terror", Faster Than Light And Other Bagatelles.

In fact, Faster Than Light and Other Bagatelles seems to clear away the ruins and rubbish of contemporary life in quest of a new and beautiful world. Plocharski criticizes ‘envious sadism’ ("There Is No Question"), ‘alarmingly supercilious…organization’ ("Poor Quality And Disorder conspiracy"), torturing people in ‘gas chambers’ ("Rightists Mossy Cheeks"), ‘political botchers’ bungling state projects ("Disarming Pistol"), ‘weight of ayatollahs’ ("But Restrainedly" ). But nowhere Plocharski hits an unfair blow. His wit, satire and mirth are gentle, not fierce or abusing.

The remarkable sharpness of his imagery, an abundant responsiveness and anguish in the Age of Machine is visible in several immortal lines from his poems:

"If you look well, the mirrors are your friends".
"He’s not a city-wolf.
He’s a net cowboy.
Connected."
"Terrorism came into existence by an anger".
"Poetry wakes up early morning, catches of quill.
The gang of scientists also is up."

In the last lines, Plocharski’s effective juxtaposition of poetry to its parallel ‘the gang of scientists’ is able to create ‘music of ideas’. The most distinctive quality of Plocharski is brilliance, which provides him an original place in literature.

Santosh Kumar