Spotlight On Writers – Thaddeus Hutyra

I emigrated out of Poland yet when Poland was still in the Soviet thaw and I became a citizen of New Zealand within five years. I lived in marvelous Wellington, the capital of NZ, called often ‘Windy Wellington,’ due to the very many winds blowing through the city both from the Pacific and nearby mountains. While in New Zealand, I lived there also in Auckland and Coromandel Peninsula for a while.

Afterwards I traveled worldwide; I had been amongst others in China and finally settled down in Antwerp, Belgium.

The United States was always the country of my final destination and my departure from Poland, just eight days before martial law was, in fact, me immigrating to America which I have never so far had luck to get to.

In the meantime, I am feeling myself quite comfortable in the European Union, a great project of all Europeans which came true.

America and especially New York City with its Statue of Liberty, remain my dream. Freedoms cherished by America are the unstoppable trend and I myself am fully behind it, wishing the same to all individuals across the world, freedoms, human rights, love …

Great, unusual things, but also reality, often miserable situations when I try to exert some influence hoping for bringing somehow a change, in the right direction. Besides, I am fascinated with everything what concerns fantastic realms and interaction, somehow, of the real world with them. In my books recently I often wrote poems alongside the divine choir lines, portraying both angelic and earthly heroes and villains, trying to decipher for example what is going wrong in some states and societies, and what exactly causes that they are going the wrong way, by contradicting for example the ideals of freedom, dignity and human rights, by overexposing their dogmatic and religious orders, to the point they are on the clear paths to dictatorships.

Probably the word freedom. I used it perhaps the most time in many of my poems.

From Themis saying:
‘I am humanity’s Noah’s Ark, I generously took them aboard
And although my robe in crimson so magically in white. I am their Statue of Liberty!‘
to Cicero, the angel saying:
‘Keeping peace and the rights of the citizen
In your own country is a measure of your greatness
But the trick is to respect the rights of citizens
In other countries we do not feel closeness to
And keep a lasting peace there, the true greatness
Like your house at peace may the neighbor’s house too.’
to human saying:
‘Ah, freedom! You are the opposite of dogma like water and fire
A dogma that would gladly put you behind bars
– Not allowed! – Calls dogma. -Allowed! – You call.’

Freedom thus in all of its dimensions…