Arquivo

Rafael Wojaczek was a rebel and choleric Polish poet who died young, in 1971, at the age of 26, just as did Jean-Michel Basquiat and Jim Morrison. His poetry and destructive life style left telling marks on the lives of many Polish youngsters. He drank, quarreled, was prone to exiting places he visited regularly through the window and, after several frustrated attempts at suicide, he eventually jumped from the third floor of a building. He was forever challenging death, face to face, on an almost daily basis. Admired by women, he loved only himself. Like one condemned, his sustenance was poetry. Aware that those who live in confusing times need myths, Wojaczek built up the legend around himself with the trivial reality of socialist Poland. With his long coat, a cigarette invariably pending from his lips, and drinking vodka out of small glasses, as if he were commemorating some party of his own, Wojaczek was a typical idol of his day. He was an outsider, always on the verge of reality, as though ready to jump out of it all at any moment.