Jan Twardowski

Born in Warsaw in 1915. A poet, Twardowski studied Polish at Warsaw University. He was a Home Army soldier during the war and fought in the Warsaw Uprising. He became a Catholic priest in 1948, serving as chaplain in schools for handicapped children and then becoming rector of the church of the Sisters of the Visitation in Warsaw.

His first book of verse, Amundsen's Return, came out in 1936. Not until 1959 did he publish his second collection. Father Twardowski's enormously popular work deals mostly with religious themes, but religiousness means more to him than a poetical or devotional state; it is rather praise and adoration of existence, an attempt at theodicy in spite of everything - in spite of experience. There is no dramatic appeal to the sacred. Twardowski's poetry makes sacred the secular and ordinary. His work is marked by a sense of humor and a conscious simplicity within his masterful craftsmanship. Tongue-in-cheek theological ruminations and tenderness and love towards an imperfect Creation find simple expression here. Yet this expression seems irrevocable and necessary, just as it is necessary to keep believing in a world where people could live securely and in harmony, feeling at home. "If St. Francis were a contemporary poet, he would write the way that Jan Twardowski writes," observes the poet Anna Kamienska.

Love people before it's too late: they're gone so quickly. (Father Jan Twardowski)