Poetry and Existence: The Kingfishers of Adam Zagajewski and Gerard Manley Hopkins

Abstract

The article presents an interpretation of Adam Zagajewski’s poem “The Kingfisher” from the 2014 volume Asymmetry in the context of Gerard Manley Hopkins’s [“As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame”], whose initial words, cited in English, were used as the motto. The article reviews the motif of the kingfisher in poetry and culture. The possible readings of the poem also relate to the symbolism of colours and fire, through which its ontological and metapoetic senses are revealed.