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Poland

An impressionist oil painting of a country house with trees and a garden in front of it.
"Spring in France" (1890) by Robert William Vonnoh. Wirt D. Walker Fund. Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago. Public Domain.
Adjectival Poem
By Piotr Sommer
Amazing spring, warm, humid / and full of backlit trees.
Translated from Polish by W. Martin & Christian Hawkey
Multilingual
Bugging
By Piotr Sommer
All the hazel eyes are rotting now underground.
Translated from Polish by W. Martin & Christian Hawkey
Multilingual
Utensils Shrink
By Piotr Sommer
Verbs swell before your eyes or / burst their seams.
Translated from Polish by W. Martin & Christian Hawkey
Multilingual
Old-Fashioned
By Edward Pasewicz
And then she died on us, utterly.
Translated from Polish by Benjamin Paloff
Multilingual
Rooms and Gardens
By Grzegorz Wróblewski
They will greet you with mysterious / smiles, those who were there before you.
Translated from Polish by Agnieszka Pokojska
Multilingual
A Thousand
By Adam Wiedemann
We exist on innumerable photographs. Whoever you areyou exist. In a country landscape there is no place
Translated from Polish by Beatrice Smigasiewicz
From “The Fool”
By Ewa Schilling
bell. alina sits at her desk. anka in the last row.
Translated from Polish
An Interview with Ewa Schilling
By W. Martin
How did you begin writing The Fool, and what motivated you to tell this particular story?
Translated from Polish by the author
From “Dukla”
By Andrzej Stasiuk
July hung over the village like a sheet of blue metal.
Translated from Polish by Bill Johnston
Animal Farm; or, a Short and Somewhat Political History of Comics in Poland
By Tomasz Kołodziejczak
The Communists disliked comics, but recognized they could be used as propaganda.
Translated from Polish by Michael Kandel
From “Key of Passage”
By Tomasz Kołodziejczak
The pyxel appeared at a most inconvenient moment for Robert.
Translated from Polish by Michael Kandel
Balloon to Solaris
By Tomasz Kołodziejczak
We find the beginnings of Polish speculative fiction at the end of the eighteenth century, when clergymen were responsible for its birth.
Translated from Polish by Stanley Bill
From “Man from Mars”
By Stanisław Lem
Without aim or thought I kept walking, a small indivisible particle pressed into the crowd, letting it carry me like a cork buoyed by waves.
Translated from Polish by Peter Swirski
From “Towers of Stone”
By Wojciech Jagielski
I made a habit of visiting the refugees in the train standing in the middle of nowhere, outside the village of Karabulak.
Translated from Polish by Soren Gauger
Abulafia
By Paweł Huelle
The sand was everywhere. Not just under the miserable bed or in his bowl.
Translated from Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones
knight from chess set
Copyright © Cyrus Chong
The Knight
By Olga Tokarczuk
Why are you crying? he said. Over chess, over that knight?
Translated from Polish by Jennifer Croft
A Juicer
By Ewa Lipska
So many saints / that they obstruct the heavens.
Translated from Polish by Robin Davidson & Ewa Elżbieta Nowakowska
The Smells of Evil
By Ewa Lipska
The secret agent of order.
Translated from Polish by Robin Davidson & Ewa Elżbieta Nowakowska
A Splinter
By Ewa Lipska
I like you a twenty-year old poet writes to me.
Translated from Polish by Robin Davidson & Ewa Elżbieta Nowakowska
Indiscretion
By Ewa Lipska
Had she busied herself in time
Translated from Polish by Robin Davidson & Ewa Elżbieta Nowakowska
Colorful hearts and circles over a maroon striped background.
Textile Design with Horizontal Undulating Strips of Pearls with Alternating Offsetting Bundles of Pearls and Heart Shapes over a Background of Alternating Overlapping Scales. Anonymous, Alsatian, 19th century. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum Accession, transferred from the Library. Public Domain.
Number One
By Ewa Lipska
Ewa Lipska pens an ode to love in a market-driven world.
Translated from Polish by Robin Davidson & Ewa Elżbieta Nowakowska
The New Century
By Ewa Lipska
The new century came as no surprise.
Translated from Polish by Robin Davidson & Ewa Elżbieta Nowakowska
February 2007 Worth Ten Thousand Words A World Of Graphics From Essence Gregorz Janusz And Krysztof Gawronkiewicz Page Thumbnail
From “Essence”
By Gregorz Janusz & Krysztof Gawronkiewicz
Translated from Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones
From “Castorp”
By Paweł Huelle
My dear boy, how capital to find you here!
Translated from Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones
The Great Atlas of Polish Queens
By Michal Witkowski
I picked up my cigarettes and went for a walk through the ruts toward Świnoujście
Translated from Polish by W. Martin
All the Languages in the World
By Zbigniew Mentzel
It was a terrible dream.
Translated from Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones
From “End of the World in Breslau”
By Marek Krajewski
Every few seconds, magnesium flashes lit up a wretched room filled with the odor of sweat-rotted shoes and bone glue.
Translated from Polish by Jean-Jacques Granas
Tuscany
By Jacek Gutorow
The landscape is effective. We’re calling out the hills.Echoes want untwining. We’re drawing water from fountains.A half-open window. The half-closed sea.The rest just flickers andwe are taking…
Translated from Polish by David Kennedy & Jacek Gutorow
Product IV (Love and Death)
By Tadeusz Pióro
An anthologist from Berlin asks me / for poems new or recognized:
Translated from Polish by the author
Padua
By Jacek Gutorow
Arcades: steps toward the sun. / Stone crossbeams with figures of griffins and nereids.
Translated from Polish by David Kennedy
Fragment
By Jacek Gutorow
Peat bog, fossilized air, loops of an evening sky.
Translated from Polish by David Kennedy
McDonald’s
By Marcin Swietlicki
I find the trace of your teeth in the foreign town.
Translated from Polish by Peter Constantine
Tiresias’s Farewell
By Janusz Szuber
From unexpiated sins / poems are born
Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles
Calypso
By Adam Wiedemann
The sea's color is green. / The white sand is stained with blood.
Translated from Polish by W. Martin
Good Later
By Marcin Sendecki
Uh huh says the streetcar, or it seems to say.
Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles
A Stone from New World
By Ryszard Krynicki
Only when I turned it over on its other side did I see that the heavy sandstone circle which looked like the top half of a mill
Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles
Closer
By Andrzej Sosnowski
Remember the very first time you did it / tough wasn't the word.
Translated from Polish by Rod Mengham
Blurb
By Marcin Sendecki
Weeks spent. a month / devoted to the study of a detail
Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles
Paints and Smears
By Jacek Gutorow
Her house in the middle of spring. / Ribbons in girls' hair, a smell of starch.
Translated from Polish by David Kennedy
Feverish Activity
By Marcin Sendecki
Good night
Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles
The Prelude
By Jacek Gutorow
A boy stood on a narrow balcony / in the afternoon: autumn was moving
Translated from Polish by David Kennedy
“I peel potatoes, stroke you on the head, pick up a leaf”
By Krystyna Milobedzka
I peel potatoes, stroke you on the head, pick up a leaf
Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles
“I put off three dreams about father until later”
By Krystyna Milobedzka
I put off three dreams about father until later
Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles
“I lose verbs most quickly, nouns are left”
By Krystyna Milobedzka
I lose verbs most quickly, nouns are left,
Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles
“exactly the forehead, exactly the mouth, exactly the hands”
By Krystyna Milobedzka
exactly the forehead, exactly the mouth, exactly the hands
Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles
cobweb
By Tadeusz Różewicz
four drab women / Want Hardship Worry Guilt
Translated from Polish by Bill Johnston
From: “After the Cry”
By Krystyna Milobedzka
you have no name, no place
Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles
From “Toward a Science of Nonexistence”
By Eugeniusz Tkaczyszyn-Dycki
if I only possessed a sunlit room / for sure I'd rid myself of my foes
Translated from Polish by Bill Johnston
“and once again”
By Tadeusz Różewicz
And once again / the past begins
Translated from Polish by Bill Johnston
Look
By Zbigniew Herbert
The blue winter sky like a stone on which angels
Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles
Principality
By Zbigniew Herbert
Over the principality a cloud of snores rises, red as a cauldron.
Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles
Ghost Ship
By Tadeusz Różewicz
the day is shorter / the sundial stands
Translated from Polish by Bill Johnston
Angels of Civilization
By Zbigniew Herbert
The real renaissance of angels came with the development of airline companies.
Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles
Gray Zone
By Tadeusz Różewicz
my gray zone / is starting to include poetry
Translated from Polish by Bill Johnston
She was doing her hair
By Zbigniew Herbert
she secured the halo on the top of her head
Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles
On Translating Poetry
By Zbigniew Herbert
Like a clumsy bumblebee / he alights on a flower
Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles
On the Hoof
By Andrzej Sosnowski
The question about this fact-free life brimming / with great notions is, can you live up to it?
Translated from Polish by Rod Mengham
Rue de Poitiers
By Ryszard Krynicki
A late afternoon, snow is falling.
Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles
Sweet, innocent
By Ryszard Krynicki
Sweet, innocent words,
Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles
Return from Assisi
By Ryszard Krynicki
A mutilated Giotto. A loud: Silenzio!
Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles