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Discussions with Małgorzata Lebda, Harry Josephine Giles, Joelle Taylor, Jelena Glazova and Krzysztof Czyżewski – the Miłosz Festival programme is here! During the event, held between 29 June and 6 July 2025, readers will have the opportunity to meet almost 70 authors. Debates, poetry readings, concerts, audiovisual presentations, workshops, performances… this year’s programme abounds with myriad poetry initiatives.Events are held at a few different venues; entry is free, but booking is required.
The motto of this year’s Miłosz Festival is “THIS” – the title of one his most important late poems, says Szymon Kloska, curator of the event. “THIS” is an old poet’s confession of his sense of humankind’s helplessness in the face of impending doom. This doom is presented as an inevitable part of our experience. Still, the poem seems to contain a hidden question: could our awareness of this thing the poet doesn’t dare name perhaps be a source of strength or hope?
Once again we have invited creative and activist circles from Kraków to shape the festival with us. As in previous years, festival meetings aren’t just held at the Potocki Palace: many events are held at Spółdzielnia Ogniwo, the Decjusz Villa and the home of the Kraków Branch of the Polish Writers’ Association, co-organiser of the festival, explains Maria Świątkowska, manager of the event. This year we are introducing many fascinating formats, she adds. As well as the traditional debates and poetry readings, we will also host performances, slams, spectacles, open mic events and concerts. We are determined to present poetry in all its formats.
Start of the festival: Romana Bobrowska Studio S-5 and the Decjusz Villa
This year’s festival kicks off on 29 June. The Romana Bobrowska Studio S-5 hosts Adam Ziemianin’s concert Polish Poets transmitted by Radio Kraków; there will also be the Second Night of the Mega Zine – a poetry competition and real-life editing of the Miłosz Festival almanac. All Sunday events are held at the Decjusz Villa. The programme includes meetings with poets, including Dagmara Kraus from Germany and Krzysztof Lisowski, as well as a discussion on Miłosz’s poetry volume THIS and finding traces of the Nobel laureate’s work in the latest poetry. The day closes with a discussion with poets nominated for the Wisława Szymborska Prize: Urszula Honek, Stanisław Kalina Jaglarz, Ola Lewandowska, Antonina Tosiek and Joanna Żabnicka.
Guests from abroad
Versopolis, a network of almost 40 European literary festivals supporting young poets and promoting their work outside their home countries, makes its mark during the celebration of poetry in Kraków. As part of our work with the network, this year we welcome the acclaimed spoken-word poet and performer Joelle Taylor, winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Polari Book, and the Montenegrin poet Vladimir Đurišić. The audience will also meet Harry Josephine Giles whose volume Tonguit has been shortlisted for the Edwin Morgan Poetry Award and the Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection, as well as Penny Boxall, holder of the Kraków UNESCO City of Literature Residency Programme. During her residency, the poet has been working on her performance Replaying the Tape; she presents its premiere at the Miłosz Festival.
The festival also hosts Myroslav Laiuk, winner of the Ukrainian LitAkcent prize, presenting Bakhmut, a collection of reportages from the front in Ukraine. Other guests include the multi-award winning Wayne Miller from the US and the translator Viktor Melnyk, author of the first translation of Juliusz Słowacki’s drama Kordian into Ukrainian. The Latvian poet and artist Jelena Glazova talks about her work and presents an audiovisual project.
Polish poetry
As usual, the festival celebrates the most important Polish poets working today. This time we welcome Małgorzata Lebda, winner of some of the most prestigious awards including the Gdynia Literary Award, the Wisława Szymborska Prize and the Konstanty Ildefons Gałczyński Poetry Prize for Best Volume of the Year ORPHEUS. The audience will also meet Darek Foks, author, filmmaker and audiovisual artist, and Kasper Pfeifer, poet and holder of a scholarship of the Minister of Science and Higher Education Krzysztof Czyżewski, author, director, animator of intercultural activities and co-founder of the Borderlands Foundation, will deliver the traditional masterclass.
Mid-2025 sees the release of several poetry volumes many of which will be launched at the Miłosz Festival. The audience will meet authors including Jakub Gutkowski, winner of the Kraków UNESCO City of Literature award for his collection livestream, and Krzysztof Pietrala discussing his volume Ao Manao.
Audience favourite Republica Poetica makes a welcome return; during the event festival guests read poems in several languages. There will also be traditional conversations about poetry, discussing works by Czesław Miłosz, Wisława Szymborska and Krystyna Miłobędzka.
Multiple dimensions of poetry: for kids, music lovers, theatre fans
Organisers of the Miłosz Festival are keen to ensure all events are highly diverse, so the programme includes poetry workshops for kids and young people, the spectacle Drama in Three Poetic Acts, concerts and audiovisual presentations. Participants will discuss the Emultipoetry project Poems on the Walls, listen to open mic performances and visit Radio Kraków to mark the 90th birthday of the poet and translator Elżbieta Zechenter-Spławińska. The event closes with a real treat: a poetry concert by Ryszard Krynicki.
Awards and prize winners
As usual, the festival includes the presentation of the Wisława Szymborska Prize. The audience will meet nominees and, the day following the gala, the winner of the prize. We will also talk to nominees for the Gdynia Literary Award in the poetry category.
All events are free although booking is required; tickets will be available two weeks before the start of the festival from www.kbfbilety.krakow.pl and via the KBF: PLUS app. The programme is available here. Festival headquarters are at the Potocki Palace.
For the latest information, follow the festival’s social media [XX].
The event is organised by the City of Kraków, Kraków Festival Office, operator of the Kraków UNESCO City of Literature programme, and the Polish Writes’ Association.
Partners: British Council, Versopolis, Wisława Szymborska Foundation, Wisława Szymborska Prize, Decjusz Villa Cultural Institute.
Co-financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage from the programme promoting readership 2025.
The public task is financed by the City of Kraków.
KBF is a municipal cultural institution which has been supporting creative industries, cultural tourism, the meetings industry and the recreation market for over twenty years. Its main activities include literature, film, music, visual arts, tourism, local initiatives, and education. The institution implement and promote major cultural events on the local, national and international scales including Misteria Paschalia, the Film Music Festival in Kraków, the Conrad Festival, the Wianki Music Festival and many other widely recognisable brands. It is also the co-host of the Potocki Palace, publisher of magazines and operator of the Kraków Culture, Kraków UNESCO City of Literature and Kraków Film Commission programmes.
Simon Armitage, Saleh Diab, Ferida Duraković, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Elena Fanailova and Denise Riley are some of the most important names in the world of contemporary poetry, who will all attend the 8th edition of the Miłosz Festival in Krakow. The poets mentioned above have one more thing in common: volumes of their poetry will be published for the first time in Polish translation, especially on the occasion of the festival. From 6 June they will be available in the bookshop in the Festival Centre, Księgarnia Młoda in the Szołayski Townhouse (Plac Szczepański 9), in the partner bookshops of the festival and in good bookshops throughout the country.
“The Seizure of power”, the motto of this year’s Miłosz Festival, refers to the struggle for a narrative describing the world, creating a framework for understanding its phenomena. Poetry civilises the struggle for symbolic power over language. By expanding it, it makes culture rich and changing. An important role in this process is played by intercultural communication – including literary translation, as Krzysztof Siwczyk, Artistic Director of the Milosz Festival, argues: “We are going to have poets from all linguistic and cultural areas coming to the footsteps of Wawel Hill. They will participate in meetings with the audience during individual and group presentations, and translations of their books will be disseminated among the Polish audience. The brand of the Miłosz Festival makes these books a material and a lasting component that enriches the national culture”. What festival publications have the organisers prepared this year in cooperation with publishers?
Mało brakowało [Close Call] is a collection of selected poems by probably the most popular British contemporary poet, Simon Armitage, which will be published in a translation by Jacek Gutorow and Jerzy Jarniewicz by Wrocław-based Wydawnictwo J. publishing house. “Armitage’s poetry reveals the strangeness of everyday life, its wonder and horror, using melodic, clear, sometimes abbreviated language”, wrote Julia Fiedorczuk about the volume.
Lokator Publishing House will publish a volume of poetry by Saleh Diab: Odległy dzień [A Distant Day] will be at the fingertips of Polish readers thanks to the translation from French by Agata Kozak. Born in Aleppo and living in France, Diab is one of the most famous names in Syrian poetry. His work is open to the influence of the great tradition of French poetry, including that of Arthur Rimbaud.
The most famous volume of poems from Sarajevo by Ferida Duraković is titled Serce ciemności [Heart of Darkness]. Its premiere, translated into Polish by Magdalena Koch , will take place during the 8th edition of the Miłosz Festival in cooperation with Pogranicze Publishing House. The siege of Sarajevo and the images of armed conflict, the feminist message about the position of a woman in the insensitive gears of the war machine – her poems and essays materialise what many of her compatriots would rather forget. However, historical darkness brightens on the horizon of this work.
This unique publishing project will also feature the premiere translation of Elena Fanailova’s poetry. Poems by the Russian poet, selected and translated by Leszek Szaruga will be published by the Mikołów Institute under the title Szybki numerek w hotelu Europa [A quickie at the Europa Hotel]]. It is a narrative poetry, aggressive and exposing the mechanisms of social life, in which Fanailova spins out stories with branching out meanings. Often referring to autobiographical motifs, the poet makes the reader of her work feel like a nosy peeping Tom peering at someone else’s life.
“The tender rebus that Riley and Jarniewicz give us to solve consists of expressions of regret and anger, expressions of disagreement and resignation, and many expressions of love. All of them together and not at all cannot stand each other. Rather, they reflect in each other, and their reflections are carefully observed by whoever reads them”, writes Barbara Klicka about Denise Riley’s volume. The poet’s works, related to the English experimental poetry trend inspired by feminist thought and contemporary philosophy of language, will be brought closer to Polish readers by Jerzy Jarniewicz’s translation. A selection of poems by Denise Riley entitled Szantung [Shantung] will be published by House of Literature in Łódź.
Among the authors of the announced volumes there is also one who will not be present in Krakow this time, but whose work returns many times during the annual discussions and meetings during the June poetry days. Spotkanie innego rodzaju [A Meeting of a Different Kind], a new selection of poems by Hans Magnus Enzensberger – because that is who we are talking about – is both an attempt to remind those who have already come into contact with his work and to present it to the new generation of readers. The selection and translation of poems by the German classicist was made by Ryszard Krynicki, who will talk at the festival about the preparation of the premiere volume under the banner of a5 Publishing House.
In a month’s time, a joint book of works by women poets who have accepted the invitation to the Miłosz Festival will also be published. Emotional and humorous poetry by Svetlana Cârstean translated from Romanian by Joanna Kornaś-Warwas and the angry and sorrowful work of Athena Farrokhzad translated from Swedish by Justyna Czechowska will meet in the volume Trado edited by Marta Eloy Cichocka. The book will be published by Lokator Publishing House.
The Miłosz Festival is also a hospitable place for book premieres, so today we invite you to promote the latest volume of Ewa Lipska’s Miłość w trybie awaryjnym [Love in Emergency Mode], a meeting devoted to the collection W cieniu totalitaryzmów [In the Shadow of Totalitarianisms] by Czesław Miłosz (both books published by Wydawnictwo Literackie), a reading of Moja dzika koza. Antologia poetek jidysz [My Wild Goat: Yiddish Poets’ Anthology] (Wydawnictwo Austeria), the presentation of Paulina Pidzik’s debut volume (KONTENT Foundation), and the premiere of Kholoud Charaf’s book Odwrócone niebo [Reversed Sky] (Wydawnictwo Znak), which is a result of the international ICORN programme for refugee writers.
The Helena Modrzejewska National Old Theatre, Be MICET Zone, Krzysztofory Palace, Alchemia Club, Krakow bookstores – these are just some of the places where poetry will reign between June 6th and 9th. The most interesting and exciting aspects of the work of contemporary poets will be the touched upon during meetings with authors, panel debates and educational workshops during the 8th edition of the Miłosz Festival. Today, we will meet new authors who will come to the City of Kings during the June poetry festival.
“During his lifetime, Czesław Miłosz — a citizen of Poland and of the world — was focused on opening the Polish literature up to world literature”, wrote Krzysztof Siwczyk, Programme Director of the Miłosz Festival, in the introduction to this year’s edition. Apart from presenting the works of the most important contemporary poets, the aim of the Miłosz Festival is to establish a space for intercultural understanding, a forum for dialogue, a place where domestic and foreign poetry listen to each other. Who will take part in this lyrical polyphony?
Piotr Florczyk, an outstanding translator of Polish poetry living in the USA, finally makes his debut in his native language with the book Dwa tysiące słów [Two Thousand Words] – exactly enough to make this language sound new and intriguing. His translations are recognised by the world’s most important juries – in 2017, he received the Found in Translation Award and the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award from The Academy of American Poets for his translation of Anna Świrszczyńska’s volume of poetry Budowałam barykadę / Building the Barricade. Uta Przyboś, an artist using various means of expression, also confirmed her participation in the festival. Although she chose mathematics at the beginning of her student career, she eventually changed her major to painting. Her works were exhibited in Poland and abroad, and they can be found in private collections in Poland, Belgium, the UK and in Luxembourg. Her poetic language owes much to her painting experience – it is completely independent, clear and original, which is difficult to achieve when one is the daughter of Julian Przyboś, one of the most eminent Polish poets of the 20th century. Krakow will also be visited by Antoni Pawlak, a journalist, author of twenty volumes of poetry and a long-time spokesperson for the Mayor of Gdańsk. The artist is considered to be a true legend of Polish poetry; his volumes Książeczka wojskowa and Obudzimy się nagle w pędzących pociągach are as current today, as they were during martial law when they were originally published. Antony Pawlak’s rebellion never stops – instead, it only intensifies. The festival will also feature a poetic voice from the North – an illustrator and translator of poetry, Alicja Rosé, who travelled across the Scandinavian and Baltic countries for several years to work on a poetic volume with her own illustrations, entitled Północ. Przypowieści – a volume that is the artist’s attempt to understand what it means to be a European today. She remains a mysterious and still undiscovered author of original poems powered by cold imagination, which brings to mind the outstanding works by Tomas Tranströmer. Tomasz Różycki, one of the most famous Polish poets of the middle generation in the world, will also join us for the Festival. His works are often translated into various languages, and the poet himself has some significant merits in this field – he has translated works by Arthur Rimbaud and Stéphane Mallarmé, among many others. A true ambassador of Polish poetry, who undoubtedly follows in the footsteps of the festival’s patron, opening Polish literature up to world literature.
Svetlana Cârstean, one of the most important authors of contemporary Romanian poetry, also joins the ranks of festival guests. Her debut volume Floarea de menghină (Flower in a Vise, 2008) brought her numerous awards, which, as it soon turned out, marked the continuation of her literary career. Cârstean’s emotional and humorous poetry has been translated into numerous languages, including Polish, and June will see the publication of her joint volume with Athena Farrokhzad, who will also be joining us during this year’s Miłosz Festival, entitled Trado, translated by Joanna Kornaś-Warwas from Romanian and Justyna Czechowska from Swedish, edited by Marta Eloy Cichocka.
The Miłosz Festival also has its regular guests, including Tomas Venclova, the most outstanding Lithuanian poet living today, listed among the “great three” poets of Central Europe of the 20th century, which he established together with Josif Brodsky and Czesław Miłosz. He was forced to emigrate – as an activist of the human rights movement, persecuted by totalitarianism, he lived in the USA for 40 years. He received honorary doctorates from many universities in Poland and around the world. He translated poems by Miłosz, Szymborska and Herbert into Lithuanian, while his works were translated by Stanisław Barańczak, Zbigniew Dmitroca, Beata Kalęba and Alina Kuzborska in a wonderful volume of selected poems Obrócone w ciszę. His masterclass on the first day of the festival is an event that you cannot miss!
We could not speak of opening up to the poetry from around the world, if it were not for the work of translators who broaden the boundaries of our understanding of others through literature. We will be able to admire their work by reading the Polish translations of our guests’ poems, but also by taking the unique opportunity to learn from the best during the translation workshops, which are a staple of the festival’s programme. Workshops of English poetry translation will be conducted by Jerzy Jarniewicz, translator of Simon Armitage and Denise Riley; French classes will be conducted by Agata Kozak, translator of Saleh Diab’s works; Leszek Szaruga – a translator responsible for Elena Fanailova’s poems – will guide the participants across the winding roads of Russian translation. Registration for the workshops will be open until the 15th of May.
This year’s edition of the Miłosz Festival, entitled The Seizure of Power will take place between 6th and 9th June in Krakow. The title of the festival was taken from the title of Czesław Miłosz’s first novel, which exposes the inner workings of Stalinism and tells the story of gaining symbolic power by imposing a way of thinking about reality and the language used to interpret its phenomena.
Music has always had a special place in the programme of the Miłosz Festival. This year’s edition of one of the most important poetry events in this part of Europe will be no different. Between the 6th and 9th of June, you will have an opportunity to enjoy the Sejny Theatre Klezmer Orchestra performance with Mikołaj Trzaska, along with Michał Górczyński’s trio performing a jazz concert dedicated to William Blake, as well as poetic-punk SIKSA and Landschaft experimental duo.
The Helena Modrzejewska National Old Theatre, the unique scenery of the Barbican and on the alternative stage of the Alchemia Club are all where the Miłosz Festival will provide the best sound environment for a rich programme that will fill the four festival days. After meetings with authors, panel discussions and workshops, we will give you some time to catch your breath. Before you sit down comfortably in the festival clubs, take part in the musical events of the Miłosz Festival!
The concert stream starts on Friday, 7th of June at 9:30 p.m. at the National Old Theatre with a concert dedicated to William Blake. The musical version of the English poems by an author considered by some to be one of the “cursed poets” will be presented by a trio encompassing: Sean Palmer (vocals), Tomek Wiracki (piano) and Michał Górczyński (contrabass clarinet and looper). Their album – William’s Things – was recognised by Polish critics, who listed it among the most important records of 2018. The artists themselves describe the sound interpretation of the Romantic poet as: “A ritual of sound and persistence, juxtaposed with William Blake’s poetry, taking hearing to infinity. Looped sounds bring the musician into a certain state, like a stream, sounds of forest or birds, taking them to a poetic place so that they can create their own notes in solitude. Things and paintings left by William Blake are the starting point of communication with the spirit of the great artist. The longing for a different time, whether past or future, is expressed in trembling, which in poetry is a change of letter, and in music is the beginning and the end of sound.”
On the 8th of June, the Sejny Theatre Klezmer Orchestra will play within the walls of the Barbican in Krakow with Mikołaj Trzaska. The orchestra comprises young people, working with the “Borderland of Arts, Cultures and Nations” Foundation and Centre in multicultural town of Sejny, where one should look for the sources of their music. It is there that the history of their creation intersects with the biography of Czesław Miłosz, who spent his childhood in the village of Krasnogruda, which can be found in the same municipality. “Today the Orchestra comprises the next generation of musicians fascinated by klezmer music. Many of them power the Warsaw music scene. Meetings with Mikołaj Trzaska and Raphael Rogiński, who have visited the ‘Sejny Jazz Cooperative’ in recent years, resulted in a new sound of Jewish music in Sejny. Mikołaj Trzaska is one of the most important freejazz musicians, playing with the best musicians in the world. He composed music for Wojciech Smarzowski’s films and theatre plays. “The most important thing is to work with the right people”, he said about the collaboration with the Klezmer Orchestra. Together with Trzaska, these “right people” recorded the soundtrack for Volhynia, which won the Eagle Award – the most important prize of the Polish film industry – in 2017. Join us for the performance of the Sejny Theatre Klezmer Orchestra, featuring Mikołaj Trzaska on Saturday at 9:30 p.m.
“If I can’t dance to it, it’s not my revolution!” – the motto of this year’s OFF stream of the Miłosz Festival, based on the works by Emma Goldman, resulted in the invitation of the SIKSA duo, who have this to say about themselves: “Perhaps a concert, perhaps a monodrama, certainly not a project, but certainly ‘great’ fun, along with running thoughts. Mouthy literature shouted to bass lines, spat out here and now by non-actress and non-musician… and if Polish culture is a cake, SIKSA is a bulimic.” It is worth experiencing this musical experience, but consider yourself warned – it might cause some emotional damage. The concert will take place in the Alchemia Club on Friday, the 7th of June, at 8:00 p.m., and will be preceded by a conversation about the loud, shouted poetry of SIKSA, starting at 6:00 p.m. Shortly afterwards, around 9:00 p.m., Alchemia Club will host the Ukrainian-German duo Landschaft. The works by Grigory Semenchuk and Ulrike Almut Sandig offer an unusual mix – they juxtapose their poems with hip-hop music, electropunk and pop. In the vapours of dense, claustrophobic sounds, they present a generational rebellion.
The Miłosz Festival will offer the listeners a true musical feast, and we promise that everybody will find something for themselves. Join us in Krakow from the 6th to the 9th of June!
Tickets for the concert of Michał Górczyński’s trio and the Sejny Theatre Klezmer Orchestra at 20 PLN, as well as discounted tickets at 14 PLN, will are available from eventim.pl and seven InfoKraków Tourist Information Points: św Jana 2, Szpitalna 25, Józefa 7, at the Wyspiański Pavilion (Wszystkich Świętych 2), at the Cloth Hall (Rynek Główny 1/3), at the Tourist Services Centre (Powiśle 11) at the ICE Kraków Congress Centre (Marii Konopnickiej 17).
Tickets are available for sale HERE.
Admission to the Siksa and Landschaft concerts will be free of charge.
The Miłosz Festival is organised by the City of Krakow, Krakow Festival Office and the City of Literature Foundation.
Between the 6th and 9th of June, the Miłosz Festival will host exceptional poets from Poland and abroad. This year’s festival centre, the Helena Modrzejewska National Old Theatre, festival bookshops, cafés and clubs, where poetry will be the most important on these days – the poetic polyphony of our guests will be present in all those places. Today, we present their profiles and remind you that the largest poetry festival in this part of Europe is just around the corner!
This year’s Miłosz Festival, taking place under slogan “The Seizure of Power “, is a living forum of dialogue taking place in many languages and at the intersection of many cultures. Who will provide this dialogue with high-octane, lyrical fuel? One of the most important contemporary English poets and the winner of probably all-important poetry awards in the UK has confirmed his presence at the festival. Simon Armitage is a professor at Oxford University and commander of the Order of the British Empire: he knows all about the collapse of this empire and the hated word “Brexit”. His poetry, disturbing, dynamic and drawing on prose forms, continues to influence Polish poetry. Denise Riley, a poet and political theory scholar, lecturer at English universities and an expert on the history of feminism, will also come to Krakow from the British Isles. The author of the renowned War in the Nursery: Theories of the Child and Mother and Marxism for Infants is an intriguing poet who combines lyricism with a cool theoretical impulse in her poems.
The invited artists will share with us their experiences gained in places where censorship deprives people of their freedom, the fate of citizens is often determined by violence and where armed conflicts were or are taking place. Ferida Duraković, a native of Bosnia and Herzegovina, called her most famous volume of poems Heart of Darkness. The siege of Sarajevo and the images of war emerge in her poems and essays. One of the most prominent figures in contemporary Russian poetry, Elena Fanailova, winner of the prestigious Andrei Bely Prize, manifests an intellectual “resistance movement” against symbolic violence and the policy of aggression in her contentious poetry which exposes the mechanisms of social life. Saleh Diab, born in Aleppo, a city-symbol and a testing ground for international war interests, has lived in France for many years, tirelessly promoting and translating Syrian poetry. In his work, he combines the experience of suffering and hope. Athena Farrokhzad, one of the most important and youngest voices of contemporary Swedish poetry, born in Tehran, will introduce herself to the Krakow audience. Her debut volume, White Blight, has been translated into twelve languages, including Polish, and has been staged several times at the theatre. Her poetry is a polyphony of voices full of anger and grief, practically begging to be shouted from the stage. The festival will not lack bold, radical gestures. Cypriot-Australian poet and actress Koraly Dimitriadis, author of the volume Love and Fuck Poems, currently a scholarship holder of the UNESCO City of Literature residency programme in Krakow, uncompromisingly opposes cultural and religious repression in her work. Poetry is the basis for her theatrical performance and a series of short films in which she herself appeared. Speaking of unruly artists, it is worth mentioning the musical duo Landschaft. Grygorii Semenchuk from Lviv and Ulrike Almut Sandig from Berlin combine their German and Ukrainian poems with hip-hop, electropunk and pop. In the vapours of dense, claustrophobic sounds, they express a generational rebellion, a rejection of the growing importance of right-wing movements and the migration crisis in Europe.
The Miłosz Festival is also a presentation of the works of authors whose voices delight and surprise, arousing the curiosity of readers of contemporary Polish poetry. The festival will be an opportunity to meet Krystyna Dąbrowska. The latest volume of the winner of the first edition of the Wisława Szymborska Award, Ścieżki dźwiękowe, brings to perfection the sparse poetics of observing the world, in which minor movements and situations instantly recall the general meanings and the always debatable, existential diagnoses of our “here and now”. Maciej Melecki, a fierce avant-garde artist and author of the “radical sadness” living in each of his poems, also refers to the world around us. His work is an expression of his refusal to accept the existing world of social, political and metaphysical illusions. Magdalena Kicińska is undoubtedly one of the most promising voices of young poetry. Her bravura poetic debut, Środki transportu immediately puts the author in an uncomfortable role – her second book will have to confirm her literary talent, with which she delighted in Pani Stefa. Presenting his performance at the festival will be Jakub Kornhauser, poet, translator, literary critic and literary scholar, another winner of the Wisława Szymborska Award among this year’s festival guests. In each of these fields, he is immersed in the heritage of the avant-garde, with particular emphasis on surrealism and concrete poetry (a genre combining elements of poetry and visual arts) of the Romance and Central European countries.
In the fire of literary polemics, in a café setting with a glass of wine or in the hum of the mixed voices of a crowd in a club – we invite you to actively commune with the most current poetry and its outstanding representatives. An opportunity like this only comes along once a year!
In conclusion: the rich programme of the Miłosz Festival includes, among others, meetings with authors, panel debates, poetry translation workshops, as well as the OFF band, presenting experimental and performative poetry. To find out more about the guests of this year’s edition, visit the website www.miloszfestival.pl and the festival fanpage on Facebook. See you there!
The Miłosz Festival is organised by the City of Krakow, Krakow Festival Office and the City of Literature Foundation.
The organisers of the Miłosz Festival will ensure that Krakow becomes a hospitable place for contemporary poetry written in various languages. Without a space for linguistic diversity, our culture will stop developing – this will be the lesson for the audience of the author’s meetings and debates, as well as the participants of the poetry translation workshops that will take place during the Miłosz Festival between the 6th and 9th of June in Krakow. Registration for the workshops will be open until the 15th of May.
Eminent poets from various language and cultural areas have accepted the invitation to Krakow, including representatives of such countries as Armenia, Australia, Lithuania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Russia, Syria, Sweden, Ukraine and the United Kingdom. Polish translations of the works of selected authors will be published in volumes prepared especially for the festival.
“National culture is enriched, changed and updated also thanks to translation, which broadens the language of mutual communication, civilising the struggle for symbolic power,” argues Krzysztof Siwczyk, Programme Director of the festival. During the June poetry festival, excellent translators will conduct workshops in three language areas. The workshops are discussions on the poetic works of selected guests of this year’s edition of the festival, as well as improving translation and interpretation skills of workshop participants. The workshop leaders have translated fundamental works of world literature, as well as the works of the guests of this year’s edition of the Miłosz Festival.
The workshop on poetic translation from English will be conducted by Jerzy Jarniewicz, one of the most important translators of English-language literature, as well as the author of twelve critical literary and essayist books and many volumes of poetry. He has translated, among others, James Joyce, Philip Roth, John Banville, Raymond and Edmund White. He also worked on the works of the guests of this year’s edition of the Miłosz Festival, translating Simon Armitage (together with Jacek Gutorow) and Denise Riley. Leszek Szaruga, poet and prose writer, translator of German and Russian poetry – including the works of Elena Fanailova, whom we will meet at the festival – will conduct workshops on Russian translation. For Francophiles, the classes will be conducted by Agata Kozak, translator of poetry and prose by outstanding French authors and representatives of Madagascar and Maghreb literature. The festival publications will feature her translations of poems by the Syrian poet Saleh Diab, who will be a guest of the 8th edition of the Milosz Festival.
The workshops will be held on two days, the 6th and 7th of June 2019 (Thursday and Friday) in the afternoon, for three hours each (total of 6 hours).
If you are interested in the workshops, please send a short CV and a motivation letter to the following address warsztaty@fundacjamiastoliteratury.pl. The deadline for submitting applications is 15 May at 11:59 p.m. Applicants who qualify to participate in the workshops will be notified by email.
Participation in the workshop is free. Participants will receive a certificate of participation in the workshop.
The Miłosz Festival, the 8th edition of which will explore The Seizure of Power will once again make some room in the city space for experimental poetry. Stage, microphone, movement and voice, and above all, a sense of disagreement with the existing reality — all of these features will characterise this year’s OFF Stream at the Miłosz Festival.
On the 6th–9th of June, poets from all over the world will come to Krakow once again, and they can surely expect that their uncompromising forms of poetic expression will enjoy a warm and cordial welcome. Join us for a meeting with experimental, performative and noisy poetry, poems that sound the best with electronic music, bass guitar and applause of the audience. “If I can’t dance to it, it’s not my revolution!” — these words, inspired by works by Emma Goldman, perfectly reflect the formula of this year’s OFF Stream at Miłosz Festival. 150 years after the birth of the famous writer, feminist and activist, we are going to start the revolution on the Vistula with dance and your applause. And it’s going to be loud!
Seizure of power requires crossing boundaries. The guests of this year’s OFF Stream are far from following the well-trodden paths in their ways of artistic expression. Athena Farrokhzad, an Iranian poet, critic and translator, will cross the boundaries of poetic form. It will be no different in the case of Tatev Chakhian — an Armenian poet who combines poetry with visual art — and Jurij Zawadski, a poet and performer from Ternopil. Landschaft — two young experimental poets, Grigory Semenchuk (Lviv) and Ulrike Almut Sandig (Berlin) — will combine their own poems with hip-hop, electropunk and pop music. Koraly Dimitriadis, a Cypriot-Australian poet and actress, author of Love and F—k Poems — a best-selling volume of poetry in Australia, as well as Jakub Kornhauser — poet, essayist, winner of the Wisława Szymborska Award. Can you hear us now? SIKSA will make sure that there’s just enough decibels and lyrical rumble. “Rebellion without having to organise tenders & clickbait controversy” — that’s what the most punk poet in Poland has to say about herself. Sorry, that’s what punk is all about now.
The works of all invited poets — regardless of differences in literary expression — refer to or are marked by revolution, war and, above all, violence, including symbolic one. Their experimental artistic gesture is an attempt to respond peacefully to violence. Is it a gesture of a seizure of power? Or rather a sign of giving it up in favour of an attempt to establish a new order? OFF will present what has so far been unknown, but there will be no shortage of regular staples characteristic for this festival stream. Kolanko No. 6 will host a poetic slam, in which poets will fight for power over the audience using the only weapons allowed in this battle — their words and a microphone. They will be accompanied by an international performance of the Drop the Mic project (Iceland, Estonia, Norway).
OFF is all about its audience, and it has been a long-standing tradition of this stream that the festival audience takes on the role of its creators. The youth stage of the OFF Stream will showcase students of a Krakow-based high school, who will conclude the Engage! Young Producers project. The editors of the KONTENT quarterly, the aim of which is to establish an independent platform for the exchange of ideas between young authors, will also get an opportunity to speak their minds, since the Festival will also coincide with the première of a new issue of the magazine.
Young, experimental poetry from all over the world will become a battleground in a struggle for social change and your recognition — from the 6th to the 9th of June in Krakow during the Miłosz Festival. Admission to all festival events is free of charge.
The Miłosz Festival is organised by the City of Krakow, Krakow Festival Office and the City of Literature Foundation.
The Miłosz Festival would like to invite you to poetry translation workshops. The workshops will be devoted to discussions dedicated to the subject of poetic works by selected guests of this year’s edition of the Miłosz Festival, as well as improving translation and interpretation skills of workshop participants. The workshops are conducted by experts with extensive translation experience, translators of poems by this year’s festival guests.
Workshop – Translation from English
Poems by: Jane Hirshfield
Host: Agata Hołobut
date:
7 June (Thursday), 10 a.m. – 1 p.m.
8 June (Friday), 10 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Venue: Massolit Books, Felicjanek 4/2
Workshop – Translation from Spanish
Poems by: Olvido García Valdés
Host: Marta Eloy Cichocka
date:
7 June (Thursday), 10 a.m. – 1 p.m.
8 June (Friday), 10 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Venue: Cervantes Institute, Kanonicza 12
Workshop – Translation from Slovenian
Poems by: Katja Gorečan
host: Miłosz Biedrzycki
date:
7 June (Thursday), 10 a.m. – 1 p.m.
8 June (Friday), 10 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Venue: Italicus Bookshop, Kremerowska 11
If you are interested in a workshop, please send us a short resume with information about your translation experience to the following address: warsztaty@fundacjamiastoliteratury.pl
Deadline for submitting applications: 1 June 2018, 11.59 p.m. Applicants who qualify to participate in the workshop will be notified by e-mail.
Participation in the workshop is free. Participants will receive a certificate of participation in the workshop.
Two days of work on collecting stories that like to escape along with their characters, featuring instructions regarding looking for topics, listening to people, asking questions and not disturbing them in telling their stories. At an accelerated pace, we will move from selecting the protagonist to the final version of the story. Workshops for those who think that not every question should be asked, and for those who think otherwise.
The workshops will take place at the Bishop Erazm Ciołek Palace, Kanonicza 17, Krakow
7 June (Thursday), 11 a.m. – 12 p.m.
8 June (Friday), 10 a.m. – 1 p.m.
On June 8th at 7:45 p.m. join us for “A conversation about a conversation” – a meeting with Mikołaj Grynberg, which will be hosted by Michał Nogaś and Justyna Sobolewska.
Free workshops, limited number of places. The following rules apply: registration for the workshops on the 7th and 8th of June should be sent, together with a short bio, to warsztaty@fundacjamiastoliteratury.pl.
Applications are accepted until the 1st of June 2018. The selected applicants will be notified about the acceptance on the 4th of June.
MIKOŁAJ GRYNBERG
Mikołaj Grynberg (born in 1966) – photographer and writer, psychologist by education. His photographs have been presented almost all over the world. Author of the albums Dużo kobiet [Many Women] (2009), Auschwitz – co ja tu robię? [Auschwitz – What Am I Doing Here?] (2010) and Ocaleni z XX wieku [Survivors of the 20th Century] (2012). He published a collection of conversations titled Oskarżam Auschwitz. Opowieści rodzinne [I Blame Auschwitz. Family Stories] (2014), a volume of short stories Rejwach [Clamour] (2016) and Księga wyjścia [Book of Exodus] (2018) – a collection of interviews about the events of March ‘68. For many years, he has been dealing with the issues and history of Polish Jews in the 20th century. Throughout his work, he takes a special perspective on dialogue, focusing on meeting others, being open to their personal experiences and stories.
