AustLit

The poem is an unfinished 'family saga' in the words of an appended note (122-123). It opens with a tribute to the poet's grandfather, who was a bargeman on the Wisła (Vistula) river, and evokes scenes from Chciuk's childhood with his parents, and his own and his brothers' experiences as partisans during WWII. Chciuk was still working on the poem when the book Pamiętnik poetycki went to press. The note explains that the poem aimed to 'show the whole tragic complexity of Polish fate and the rise of intellectuals of Polish peasant background', in other words, writers such as Chciuk himself.