Julian Tuwim's Bench
One of the attractions of my city is Piotrkowska Street. Part of it is a representative avenue where you can find not only many sculptures, and paintings (including murals), but the whole street itself is a specific historical map of the city. Each building is a monument.
Between these wonders, there is a bench on which an inconspicuous man in a coat from the beginning of the 20th century sits. This is Julian Tuwim's Bench. Monument dedicated to one of the greatest and the most famous poets and writers in Poland.
The Locomotive
A big locomotive has pulled into town,
Heavy, humungous, with sweat rolling down,
A plump jumbo olive.
Huffing and puffing and panting and smelly,
Fire belches forth from her fat cast iron belly.
Poof, how she's burning,
Oof, how she's boiling,
Puff, how she's churning,
Huff, how she's toiling.
She's fully exhausted and all out of breath,
Yet the coalman continues to stoke her to death.
Numerous wagons she tugs down the track:
Iron and steel monsters hitched up to her back,
All filled with people and other things too:
The first carries cattle, then horses not few;
The third car with corpulent people is filled,
Eating fat frankfurters all freshly grilled.
The fourth car is packed to the hilt with bananas,
The fifth has a cargo of six grand pi-an-as.
The sixth wagon carries a cannon of steel,
With heavy iron girders beneath every wheel.
The seventh has tables, oak cupboards with plates,
While an elephant, bear, and two giraffes fill the eighth.
The ninth contains nothing but well-fattened swine,
In the tenth: bags and boxes, now isn't that fine?
There must be at least forty cars in a row,
And what they all carry — I simply don't know:
But if one thousand athletes, with muscles of steel,
Each ate one thousand cutlets in one giant meal,
And each one exerted as much as he could,
They'd never quite manage to lift such a load.
First a toot!
Then a hoot!
Steam is churning,
Wheels are turning!
More slowly - than turtles - with freight - on their - backs,
The drowsy - steam engine - sets off - down the tracks.
She chugs and she tugs at her wagons with strain,
As wheel after wheel slowly turns on the train.
She doubles her effort and quickens her pace,
And rambles and scrambles to keep up the race.
Oh whither, oh whither? go forward at will,
And chug along over the bridge, up the hill,
Through mountains and tunnels and meadows and woods,
Now hurry, now hurry, deliver your goods.
Keep up your tempo, now push along, push along,
Chug along, tug along, tug along, chug along
Lightly and sprightly she carries her freight
Like a ping-pong ball bouncing without any weight,
Not heavy equipment exhausted to death,
But a little tin toy, just a light puff of breath.
Oh whither, oh whither, you'll tell me, I trust,
What is it, what is it that gives you your thrust?
What gives you momentum to roll down the track?
It's hot steam that gives me my clickety-clack.
Hot steam from the boiler through tubes to the pistons,
The pistons then push at the wheels from short distance,
They drive and they push, and the train starts a-swooshin'
'Cuz steam on the pistons keeps pushin' and pushin';
The wheels start a rattlin', clatterin', chatterin'
Chug along, tug along, chug along, tug along! . . . .
Julian Tuwim
He was born into a Jewish family in the city of Łódź in 1894. Studied law and philosophy at Warsaw University. He was always very active in popularizing the Polish language. He spent World War II in exile traveling through Romania, France, Portugal, and Brazil, eventually arriving in New York in 1942. Returning to Warsaw in 1946, Tuwim continued his writing, translating, and editorial work.
national poet
Thanks to people like him their active work Polish never forgot their cultural identity. My nation lost the country few times in the history but has never change the language. The more Poles were oppressed, the more they cherished their heritage. The lack of freedom of speech created in the nation the ability to make custom sarcasm and accurate irony. Through art, information was passed on to one another in the horrible times of wars or communism. Ability to communicate, to be able to read about your culture and history and to learn in your mother tong kept us all together even through the hardest time.
Julian Tuwim was awarded the Gold Laurel of the Polish Academy of Literature (PAL) for outstanding work in 1935, the literary prize of the city of Łódź in 1928 and 1949, an honorary doctorate from Łódź University, the Polish PEN Club’s award for his translations of Pushkin in 1935, and a state award in 1951. The artist died in Zakopane in 1953.