Trupa Trupa at the Bowery Electric in New York City

Grzegorz Kwiatkowski is a man of many talents.  He's a holocaust investigator and denouncer of fascism, a poet, and a member of the neo-punk band (don't rely on me for the terminology) Trupa Trupa.  I've seen him talk at New York University (my double alma mater) about his holocaust research and his assessment of current fascism.   I read and was very impressed with Crops, his book of poetry (here's my review).  I've interviewed Grzegorz on my YouTube channel.  I've listened to but had never seen in person his band Trupa Trupa. Until tonight, when Trupa Trupa put on a volcanic performance in the small but packed Bowery Electric venue in New York City -- packed with gyrating fans (including me), who loved every minute.

And performance is the right word for it.  Trupa Trupa not only sings and plays two guitars and a drum -- all of which is done with a keen edge of power and excitement -- but Grzegorz  especially puts on an impressive nonverbal show of facial expressions and panoply of gestures.  Ray Birdwhistell (look him up) would have had a really good time at this concert.  Maybe even Baryshnikov.

And all of this was window dressing for a potent bunch of high octane songs which could wake, if not the dead, likely someone in a coma.  But my favorites were two slow songs -- "Wasteland" and even more so, "Sacrifice" --  and "Uniforms," in a class of its own, which I've been liking a lot as an anti-fascist paen for a few years now.

And as a Beatles fan who can never get enough of them, I was delighted to hear Trupa Trupa work bits of "Magical Mystery Tour," "Blue Jay Way," and of course "All You Need Is Love" into their show.  This song is a tonic for the hate daily spilling out of the White House.  And I heard it on Sirius/XM's Beatles Channel when I was driving home.  That has to be a sign of something hopeful.

So count me in now as a big fan, not only of Grzegorz Kwiatkowski but Trupa Trupa.  Tonight was the last performance of their American tour.   I'll be sure to see them next time they're in town.

selfie of NY Times reporter & family friend Mike Grynbaum, Rolling Stone Deputy Editor Simon Vozick-Levinson, and Yours Truly enjoying the concert earlier tonight

Review of Grzegorz Kwiatkowski's "Crops": Slaughter and Sunlight

I don't often review poetry on this blog.  The last -- and, in fact, the only -- time I did was Andrew McLuhan's Written Matter last February.  But, once again, words without music, or with music entirely in the head, call.

Grzegorz Kwiatkowski's Crops is a very short book with some very deep reflections about one of the tragedies of our modern world and longer than that.  Kwiatkowski is a Polish poet and musician, and this book of poetry traces his confrontation and struggle to understand the Holocaust that took so many innocent lives of Jews and others in his country.

The poems are not easy to read, and they should not be.  They're replete with bones and body parts, memories and excuses for what happened, a lot more than a moment of sheer depravity that gripped the world. And all the more relevant because of what's going on in our world today.

But I wouldn't be calling your attention to these poems if there was not also some hope in this grim accounting, leaking through and glimmering around the edges.  Kwiatkowski concludes one of his poems with "someone has written on the nearby wall: innocent sunsets".  In the context of the poem, the "innocent sunsets" are an evasion of history and responsibility.  But, for me, anything that has anything to do with sunsets is also a recognition of hope for the future.  I know that I always feel good when I see a sunset. And that's why, more than fifty years ago, I wrote the lyrics to Looking for Sunsets (In the Early Morning).

And, indeed, all the poetry of Crops is a plea for understanding and hence a statement of hope and an evidence of healing.  If someone in Poland today can write such poems, there's hope for our humanity.

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Hear Grzegorz Kwiatkowski read some of his poetry via Zoom here.