Twenty-Two Letters Introductiory Remarks on Józef Czechowicz’s Poem

Abstract

The article is an attempt at describing the peculiar structure of Józef Czechowicz’s „Poem”, not a very well-known work written by this poet. As Panas shows, the genre labels usually used to describe it („abcd-ary”; alphabetical work) cannot show the hybrid construction of the text, whose exceptionality consists in using consecutive letters of the Hebrew alphabet as the main composition axis of the text. The hybrid character of Czechowicz’s „Poem” has also its source in trying to phonetically render the quality of the Hebrew letters, which - with only some exceptions - he managed to do excellently. Panas’s analysis also demonstrates that this peculiar structure of the text cannot be treated exclusively as an impressive concept, and the Hebrew alphabet becomes one of the significant motifs in the presented world.