Miłosz Festival

Emission

Oh yes, the garden dug up by perfunctory death has overgrown,
although I haven’t noticed anything, I wasn’t home
and, as they say, one should be sorry, we didn’t know each other well,
one should agree with those who did not go out too often,
limitting themselves to an emission of hullabaloo, a hard beat from the dawn on, only fanatics’
speeches, off the wall songs, talks through one’s hat, but it seemed to suit them,
the son and his old mother, out of touch with each other, except for insults.

What was left was the weed, flowers pissed on by dogs, a ground floor
flat, run out of steam, sheltered preserves. But still one
can come to an agreement, the shadow of the flowerpot they probably meant.
It all seems to me this way tonight as I’m smoking by the window, littering the garden,
and giving the cheek, more courageous by this pleasant lack I’m getting used to,
I gradually put on a burden, I tread on the traces, between vegetable patches,
I can see where words falls, and where – only the rain.

People tend to promise themselves too little in the light
of opportunities. For instance, take these very people. Monsters in love,
affectionate amphibians swarming around the carcass of their own grievances as if the affair was
the brooding of an empty egg, a nest of blood of unknown origins, a kiwi
sent chasing a carrier pigeon. I kept asking, offering,
do kill one another, please, but nobody cared to listen, there was no end to their sreaming,
only now do I understand, lying on my back, no more than a handful of sentences.
Translated by Adam Zdrodowski

Krzysztof Siwczyk

Poet, literary reviewer, occasionally an actor

Krzysztof Siwczyk – born 1977. Poet, literary reviewer, occasionally an actor. Author of poetry volumes:

Dzikie dzieci [Wild Children] (Świadectwo, Bydgoszcz 1995)

Emil i my [Emil and We] (Czarne, Gładyszów 1999),

Wiersze dla palących [Poems for Smokers] (Instytut Mikołowski, Mikołów 2001),

Dane dni [The Days Given] (Port Legnica, Legnica 2001),

Zdania z treścią [Sentences with Content] (Biuro Literackie Port Legnica, Legnica 2003),

W państwie środka [In the Country of the Centre] (Biuro Literackie, Wrocław 2005),

List otwarty [Open Letter] (1995-2005) ( Biuro Literackie, Wrocław 2006, collected poems)
Centrum likwidacji szkód [The Centre for Claims Adjustment] (Biuro Literackie, Wrocław 2008),

Koncentrat [Concentrate] (WBPiCAK, Poznań 2010),

Gdzie indziej jest teraz [Elsewhere It Is Now] (WBPiCAK, Poznań 2011, selection of poems),

Gody [The Wedding] (WBPiCAK, Poznań 2012r),

>Dokąd bądź [Anywhere] (Wydawnictwo a5, Kraków 2014)

and literary criticism books:

Ulotne obiekty ataku [Fleeting Objects of Attack] ( Instytut Mikołowski, Mikołów, 2010),

Kinkiety w piekle [Hell’s Sconces] (Instytut Mikołowski, Mikołów 2012).

Two books have been published in translation to German and Slovenian:

Im Reich der Mitte (Edition Erata, Lipsk 2007)

Privec videnja (Založba Pivec, Maribor 2012).

In 2015, French publisher GREGES will publish a large selection of poems, translated by Isabelle Macor-Filarska.

Winner of the Czas Kultury (1995) award for best debut of the year, the Fundacja Kultury (1999) award, nominated for the Silesius (2011) award, winner of the Kościelski Award (2014). His poems have been published in all the important literary magazines in the country, as well as abroad (Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Slovakia, Canada, France, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria). They can also be found in poetry anthologies: Macie swoich poetów [You Have Your Poets] (1996 and 1997), Antologia współczesnej poezji polskiej [An Anthology of Contemporary Polish Poetry] (2000), 14.44 (2000), Das Unsichtbare Lieben-Neue Polnische Lyrik (1998), Akslop (Słowenia, 2005), Vingt-quatre poetes polonais [Twenty-Four Polish Poets] (Murmure, France 2003). He starred in the title role in the film Wojaczek (1999), directed by Lech Majewski, for which he was nominated for the European Film Award (Paris, 2000). He appeared in Bluesmani (dir. Adam Sikora, 2000), and the multigenerational project Czuję głód [I Feel Hunger] (dir. Paweł Bogocz, 2008). Together with director Adam Sikora, he completed the film Wydalony [Exiled], based on motifs from Samuel Beckett’s work, in which he played the main role. The film was premiered at the New Horizons International Film Festival in Wrocław in 2010. Member of the Polish Writers’ Association and the Pen Club. Works with Polityka and Tygodnik Powszechny magazines. He was the co-host of the television program about books “Czytelnia” [“The Reading Room”] and “Czytanie to Avantura” [“Reading Is a Ruckus”] on TVP KULTURA. He works in the Mikołowski Institute, where he is the editor of a poetry series, as well as the literary magazine Arkadia. He was the editor of the poetry department in the magazine Litera. He lives in Gliwice.

Pic. Tomasz Tomaszewski