For Eugene

.It was published in 1991. Printed on the cover page is the title 'Things to Translate'. Written on the same page, beneath the title 'For Eugene, in Stoke-on-Trent, 25 VIII 2003 (with all my best wishes!) Piotr Sommer' and a drawing of a stickman holding a stalk of flower - not a faceless stickman but the kind with a smiley. Piotr Sommer is the author, a Polish poet. I found this thin paperback in a secondhand bookstore about five or six years ago. Often when I open this book, I would come across the same page and read this message before proceeding to the content. Although I am not the addressee, I have read this handwritten message lying on my bed, in the living room, in school, on the bus, in the toilet. I thought about how and why the book had ended up in the secondhand bookstore? I speculated about the relationship between Piotr and Eugene. Why flowers? Superficial, merely acquaintances, Eugene has no interest in this book, and it was dumped together with some bills, statements and invitation cards piled under the coffee table with the old newspapers and magazines, after a month or so. Maybe, they were once very close, intense but the friendship has soured very badly and Eugene just couldn't stand the sight of the book. Was it misplaced and sold as a part of a bulk by a rag and bone man? Perhaps this Eugene is already dead and his family cleared everyhing in his room, including his bookshelf with a modest but eclectic collection. I thought, this Eugene could be one of the few Eugenes I know. The Eugene from sixth form, the well-loved Eugene, the much-praised Eugene, some forgotten Eugenes. Related words and names came to mind, Eugène, the French Eugene, Eugenides, eugenics. Perhaps, this Eugene is an avid but selective reader who maintains the purity of his collection like a fascist. If that's the case, I would say to the imagined (but not imaginary) Eugene that it is not 'a matter of of taste'. But rather how some people without the faculty of taste are allowed to express their opinions, and are given the rights to act on their tastelessness.

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