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Poland

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

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

So many saints / that they obstruct the heavens.

Translated from Polish by Robin Davidson & Ewa Elżbieta Nowakowska

The Smells of Evil

The secret agent of order.

Translated from Polish by Robin Davidson & Ewa Elżbieta Nowakowska

A Splinter

I like you a twenty-year old poet writes to me.

Translated from Polish by Robin Davidson & Ewa Elżbieta Nowakowska

Indiscretion

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

Ewa Lipska pens an ode to love in a market-driven world.

Translated from Polish by Robin Davidson & Ewa Elżbieta Nowakowska

The New Century

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

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

From “Konwalia”

By Adam Wiedemann

they have everything you can imagine here at least

Translated from Polish by W. Martin