Studia Filologiczne UJK

Summary

The author of the article analyzes Tadeusz Śliwiak›s “Poem about the Urban Slaughterhouse” and proves that he watched scenes hidden from children due to the excess of violence due to wartime circumstances. This fact made the poet quickly understand the fundamental laws and assimilate them. In the volume from 1965, two poetics (factual and imaginary) are adjacent to each other, strengthening the message and allowing us to look at the process of slaughterhouse work and children’s imagination. The poet deliberately chose imaginative poetics as the most adequate to reconstruct the child’s feelings. In addition, it is of great importance to show the process of absorbing the language of adults, which depreciates animals. The author of the article argues with Andrzej Kaliszewski that for a child, the death of an animal is no different from the death of a man. Śliwiak reconstructs images related to the mass death of animals and temporary relationships with animals living in the slaughterhouse and those who were postponed from the moment of death. In the “Poem about the Urban Slaughterhouse”, the reconstruction of the fate of cows affects the expansion of history and the recognition of animals as actuaries endowed with agency, which until a certain point was not realized.