Michael March: A Question of Identity

Olga Lomová: You're a poet, translator, and the organiser of a literary festival. In the beginning however you studied history? What brought you to history? And what interested you the most about it?

Michael March: I went to study history because American history is entertaining. And it's also short. So I had lots of time for other things as well. I focused on American history – European history is much more serious. And bloody. And also more complicated.

OL: But when I look at the number of slaughtered American Indians it seems to me that there was a fair bit of blood in American history too?

MM: Yes, that's true. But that isn't studied in American history.

OL: And why does American history strike you as entertaining?

MM: I discovered that the American concept of decline hides within it, though in a very open way, the very mechanism of how that society works. You can see it for example in the politics of the city of New York, in the history of New York gangsters. American history clearly manifests itself outwardly, you can hear it in songs – in Gospel it even becomes a serious matter – and that's all part of the way this country works, which is clearly evident outwardly.

OL: Are you still involved with history?

MM: Of course. For the past few weeks I've been very interested in the Weimar Republic. It strikes me as a very current story, related to the corruption of culture. That's a theme that's very close to me today. I'm interested in the cultural history of Weimar before1930, and in the way Hitler came to power and how Hitler then interpreted the Weimar constitution. These facts bring me to the idea of Jean Genet and how in the end the definition of words is always determined by the one who is in charge. This kind of view of the past helps us to clearly see similar kinds of manipulation, disinformation and twisting of the facts in a way that, in the end, can lead to the downfall of culture, even today, in the history that we are living right now. Over the centuries various impulses have piled up and discussions have taken place which give rise to culture, but it can be destroyed very quickly.

OL: Were you interested in poetry as a student?

MM: Poetry is a matter of personal identity. Some discover their identity quickly, like Rimbaud, others take a longer time to mature to this realisation. A poet – but also a novel writer, or historian – above all has to look inside and find out who they really are. Of course being a poet is a constant process, a becoming. Poetry itself is metabolism, breathing, we know that from Dante or, say, from Mandelstam; it is movement, poetry is of a naturally organic nature. The contrasts in poetry are close to life, like life they are constantly in motion – the moment we deliver a word, everything is already different. Poetry is also a matter of truth. Poetry is a way of thought, just remember Heidegger. So first a person finds their poetic identity – or they think they do – and then a certain way of thinking follows. And here is the potential of one individual life, the potential of being.

OL: You're also a translator. The first poet you translated was Zbigniew Herbert.

MM: Before that I translated a poem by Edmond Jabès, called "Water". Zbigniew Herbert really captivated me – I think he's one of the greatest poets of all time. First I translated his essays, entitled "Barbarian in the Garden". Then I translated Herbert's poems. I've translated some younger Polish poets as well; of course with the help of native speakers, I couldn't do it without them. In a similar manner I later translated something from Gojko Djogo, an incredible Serbian poet.

OL: Do you feel a personal affinity with these poets? Do you think that your own work is similar to theirs in some way?

MM: Herbert's ironic grin is very close to me. Herbert looked at the world historically and also philosophically. That's my personal approach as well. He took things that he saw, that he discovered around himself. This discovering has its roots in Simone Weil. With Herbert I understood that in looking at the world the poet becomes a natural critic of the world – the poet is different from the world but at the same time, as Herbert says, the poet is aware that complicated questions require a simple answer. The complexity of the world manifests in constant questioning, you'll find that with many poets. It's not by chance that Edmond Jabés wrote the "Book of Questions".

OL: How did you discover these poets, who for you were actually exotic and far removed, when you didn't study their languages?

MM: First by living in America, in New York. All at once I found my inner voice, I started to live like a poet and read like a poet. I started to write, I looked for a way to respond to this discovery of the poet inside me, and I also had to find a way to survive as a poet. The way of surviving, especially in New York, was much different at that time than in Europe, because I also left for Europe in 1970. To Europe, a large part of which was occupied, not just literally, but also in a figurative sense – occupied by strictly segregated ideologies, occupied by a history completely different from the one I'd experienced myself. In essence, the life of a poet is the same everywhere, and what's most remarkable is that it's still the same, it doesn't change at all. The space in which a poet moves changes, his immediate vicinity and society – Han-shan left for the mountains, Heraclitus went into seclusion, Zbigniew Herbert also lived outside society. And then there's a kind of strength of appeal, when I met him in West Berlin...

OL: You met in person and then you started to translate him ...

MM: Oh no, I was already translating him.

OL: Maybe I'm looking for an answer to a much more down-to-earth question. The fact that Zbigniew Herbert is known in a Czech environment is a natural result of our proximity, traditional cultural contacts and a similar historical fate. But how does such a poet become known outside the natural area of activity?

MM: When your teachers show you something, it can have an effect, but it doesn't have to. It's a question of hidden potential – you have to have the ability in yourself to recognise what the teachers are unravelling in front of you, and if you do recognise it, you have to decide for yourself what to do with it, how to absorb it and how to pass it on again. It's an internal conversation with yourself and at the same time a conversation between yourself and society.  Therein lies the magic and greatness of literature, its organic and eternal nature. So literary discoveries are naturally mediated not only by our instincts, but also by our teachers. We put it all together ourselves and evoke the world anew.

But here's maybe a more personal example. I lived in London as a very poor poet – I was living there for twenty-seven years. During that time, I once came to take a look at Prague, that was in 1976, in order to meet with Vladimír Holan. His "Night with Hamlet" is one of the greatest poems of the twentieth century, just as captivating as Eliot's "Waste Land". I was also translating "Night with Hamlet" into English. So I came to Prague, but I didn't find Holan, I just found the secret police. I stayed in Prague for just four days, but in the end I didn't have any chance to meet with Holan.

But back to translating – it was actually an old project of Ezra Pound's to discover poets, translate them, and bring them from place to place. To put the poet inside you into the service of other poets and discover them, publish them, make them well-known, and thus ensure them eternal life. That inspired me.

OL: How did you choose the ones you wanted to translate?

MM: I read translations of other poems. In London, at that time, at the end of the sixties and beginning of the seventies, a certain special space opened up there – great poetry and literature was being translated into English. Vladimír Holan, Miroslav Holub, Zbigniew Herbert, Giuseppe Ungaretti, Eugenio Montale, Cesare Pavese, all exceptional poets, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, or say Jean Genet, Witold Gombrowicz, Samuel Beckett – it was an exciting time. You could just open an anthology of post-war Polish poetry put together by Czeslaw Milosz – there was a whole new world in there.

OL: Does the pace of today's publishing industry still provide space for discovering new poets? Or was that an exceptional trait of the late sixties and early seventies?

MM: Ask Nietzsche about that. He was already complaining about the level of education and the associated common publishing practices seen exclusively from the perspective of usefulness. Of course culture can't be construed purely in the spirit of Jeremy Bentham and the industrial revolution, which sees it as nothing more than a product like any other. Nevertheless we live in a world that is tending in this direction and in which we are constantly forced to lose our own identity and identify with brands that someone has defined for us ahead of time. In this regard much has changed in my lifetime. My mother wore expensive clothes and you could tell right away – the societal convention of the time required it, but no one flaunted the name of their tailor. Today, everything is the other way around – it's the brand that is shown off because no one can tell the quality. And it's the same with your identity – you don't have to work to define it, others do it for you. But as you struggle through life you get to the place where you were supposed to start, with your own identity, which you discover, at least if you're lucky enough. It's quite ironic - people are manipulated by the world of commerce, society, and of course politics too. I have the feeling that in a way it's tougher today, for the younger generation, to find yourself. One of the tools that can help and that is accessible is poetry.

OL: Let's talk about your writers' festival. Every year the festival takes place with a focus on one central idea. Tell us about the idea of this year's festival.

MM: We operate under the premise that one strong idea doesn't exist and we try to think about what people forget about, or what they would like to forget. This year that specifically means that we want to present writers that come from two ancient civilisations – Arabia and China – and at the same time to think about the historical relevance of their works in the sense of what definitive events from the recent past mean for them.  One such event that presents itself is 11 September 2001. We decided we would prepare the festival with the tile “Two Thousand and One Nights: The Art of Storytelling”. We are connecting literature and history and posing the questions: What is a story? The story in the Arab world, in Gaza, the Chinese, in Tibet - what stories actually exist? Which stories are true?

Our topic this year also takes aim at China – how are the historical facts perceived there, say of the events in Tiananmen Square twenty years ago - what is reality? The ethical reality, not the commercial one. And above all there are two ancient, spectacular civilisations in our consciousness that seem constructed by our commercial interests.

OL: Is your topic motivated more by political reasons, an interest in far-off cultures, or is it a purely literary interest?

MM: The choice of topic was primarily motivated by life in Prague. Because our goal is to bring authors to Prague. We don't want to bring in disinformation or propaganda; we are bringing in authors so that they are physically present here - so that each one can tell their own story. In Prague, personal contact with Chinese writers, or writers from the Arab world, is non-existent. We are welcoming excellent writers, so that they can tell us their stories. Following the example of Osip Mandelstam I am convinced that being, in and of itself, is comparison.

OL: That's all wonderful, but I can't forgot the question, why September 11th as a central point of the Prague Writers' Festival? I have the feeling that it's not exactly a story that Czechs would say the world (and literature) revolves around. Aren't you actually trying to import a new brand?

MM: The topic has its place in Prague because there are too many casinos - when you play nine eleven – red, black, you might win. Why not win the jackpot? But seriously, September 11th is a terribly important date because it is used on all sides as a starting point for the future - the war against terror, the prisoners in Guantánamo, the whole question of security, and who gives people security? Only the state. 11 September is also a date that hands over immense power to the state. The Arab world doesn't believe in this date, doesn't believe in how the West constructs its meaning. So obviously literature is meeting with history and politics here. Just like in the case of 1989, the year of changes: the Velvet Revolution, Tiananmen Square...

OL: I don't want to debate the significance of those historical events, I'm only trying to look at the theme of the festival from the point of view of a Czech lover of literature whose imagination takes slightly different paths.

MM: Well exactly, the point of the idea of the festival is also to bring the Czech perception into the real world, into real politics. Czechs would obviously like to stay outside...

OL: I wouldn't say so – maybe we just have slightly different symbolic dates?

MM: That's precisely part of the conversation that we want to develop. We bring in interesting writers and ask them questions. We simply want to provoke a conversation, to confront conflicting opinions – conflict is necessary for a new story to be formed. We are an intermediary, translucent, inert, only working to open up a multilateral discussion. Herein resides that comparison, that's why we're here. We are still thinking about the fact that we're in Prague, and Czechs are amazing hosts, perceptive and unique. The world comes to Prague and at the same time Prague finds itself in the world. We are creating the opportunity here in Prague to converse on a personal level with writers, to pose questions to them, to show a view of reality from different perspectives. But it is not a one-way affair – on the contrary the writers learn about the perspective and view of history in Prague. They will be here for six nights. Of course we don't know which conversations will turn out well but the fact that they do turn out is amazing...

OL: So the central theme is above all your theme?

MM: Of course. It is something very personal - a poetry of sorts.

OL: The idea of provoking, of showing a completely different point of view is interesting. But you don't try in some way to accommodate the Czech environment?

MM: Of course we are aware of the subjectivity of every theme. We would also like to attract more attention to literature in Prague so that literature would get the kind of support it deserves – I think that's not happening in Prague right now. Our goal is to take part in shaping the intellectual environment. At the same time we are dependent on politicians and government institutions. It seems to me that there is little true sponsorship here – no awareness of helping form cultural values from below - as if society was functioning on the principle "rid everything and everyone of certainty”. Culture comes under control through financial mechanisms. Literature should receive greater support from completely independent sources.

Our festival is mortal just like any other event. As Saint Augustine could confirm, every year we must start again, in all ways – including financing. The festival presents a sizeable financial risk. Again and again we have to acquire the support of society, political institutions, cultural institutions, otherwise we couldn't go on. We're glad for every new partnership, because it means help for the festival and allows new ideas to spread, new impulses.

OL: Who will be the Czech guests at the festival this year? Or is it a surprise?

MM: We announced that the principal Czech guest this year will be Jiří Suchý and we're also preparing to announce a second guest, Jaroslav Rudiš. Suchý of course fits well with another guest of the festival, Wolf Biermann. They will perform together because they were friends  during the Cold War. Wolf Biermann was essentially thrown out of East Germany, forced to live in exile. When years later he got his hands on the files that the STASI had kept on him, he found undelivered letters from Jiří Suchý. Like Jiří Suchý, Wolf Biermann is an amazing performer – I think it will be a real experience to see them on the stage. Jaroslav Rudiš, the author and comic-book writer, will also have his foreign counterpart at the festival. It will be Robert Crumb, the legend of American underground comics.

OL: And other guests?

MM: This year's delicacy is Chinese and Arab writers. They're excellent authors; they bring their own point of view, new voices across cultures, but in Prague they are almost unknown so far - and we don't know how many people will come to see them. It's a risk – of course we could organise the festival without such risks - but that's not what we're about. We believe that they will create a new dialogue - in addition to our unique website (www.pwf.cz) which expands our contact with lovers of literature - over 120,000 visitors who visit our website each month. Before the festival the Guardian –our sponsor for the past seventeen years - advertises the festival every day for five weeks. There's not another literary festival in the world with that kind of publicity.

OL: You talk about the risks of doing business, but at the same time aside from the authors that Czech readers know as well, you also invite authors that haven't yet been translated into Czech and about whom Czechs don't know much. Personally I would like it if there was greater interest in, say, modern Chinese authors, but the apathy of the Czech public is in a way a cultural fact that one can hardly do anything about. Why do you do it?

MM: If poetry is a way of thinking, the festival is a festival of thought, and for a person to think about something, they first have to encounter it. That's why the point of the festival is dialogue, confrontation of various points of view, as well as an attempt to provoke something new. That's why it's necessary for Prague to hear voices from China or from the Arab world. Why do people in the Czech Republic support Tibet? It is a brand that's already been introduced, and it has politics, it's sexy. But we wish to give people the opportunity to hear writers talk about those things, for them to speak from their own experience about what is going on. I'm convinced that through the word of the writer we can get as far as is humanly possible, beyond the brand - to real quality.

Literature provides an enormous space and opportunity. We - as a festival - wish to open it up. We hope that it will be possible to translate the thoughts and experiences from elsewhere into a new societal and historical environment. The festival is an important cultural event which can also project itself into other spheres – say into politics. I'd like for our festival to step into a much greater story, to become part of the fabric from which history is created, because to help create history is the role of literature since the dawn of time, since the beginning of humanity.