PHENOMENOLOGY OF PHOTOGRAPHY. POETIC PERCEPTION IN ANNA KAMIENSKA'S AND TYMOTEUSZ KARPOWICZ'S VERSE

This article concentrates on the nature of visual perception which informs those of Anna Kamienska's and Tymoteusz Karpowicz's poems that are ekphrases of photographic images. Both writers seem to rely on the phenomenological 'Anschauung' (sensuous perception) which proceeds in three dialectical phases. The first phase produces a complete reconstruction of the object of perception, the second phase negates it, and the third achieves a new synthesis, which in a way reconciles the previous two outcomes. In effect, each poems conceived in this way becomes a record of a visual epiphany. Yet the epiphanies experienced by either poet are strikingly different. For Kamienska a photo of her dead mother stimulates the contemplation of a gratuitous gift, free from any connotations of trade (like Jean-Luc Marion's donation). For Karpowicz a photograph of this kind would usually produce a hypnotic vision in which the person from the picture turns into the poet's uncanny alter-ego.