To Broach the Conscious Pain with a Word. The Thematization of Disease and Death in the Last Poems by Jacek Kaczmarski

A singer and bard Jacek Kaczmarski left a poetical record of his coping with esophagus cancer in the
poems comprised in the posthumous volume entitled Tunnel. In this article, on the background of “the
discourse of disease”, the authoress analyses some of the works placed in that book to see how the illness and the end of life are conceptualized in them as well as considers the functions of definite poetical
measures exposing experience of the disease. Furthermore, she presents how the social observations
relating to the surroundings of suffering person are introduced. Nevertheless, the main object of thought
in this text are the ways of taming or else “disarming” of cancer and death by means of carnivalization,
removing the taboo, the trial with the myths grown around - but not only. On the one hand, it is about
strategies of grotesque transforming, caricature, naturalism, but on the other hand their basis is created by
authentic, dramatic experiences resulting in such moving works as the title Tunnel, a trial of explication
of clinical death. The authoress ponders over a bond of such polar attitudes and poetics — the brutality
or frivolousness of imaging with pathos and lyricism. She tries to outline the ars moriendi of Kaczmarski,
based on humanistic protest in the face of death fatality, apologue of temporality, identity and on the
Tale. That “art of dying” shows how to meet the inevitable, not only worthily, but also cheerfully.