“Living in Poland was important for me as much in terms of my personal development as my literary development, if I can make such a distinction, and Polish is the only other language I’ve learned to speak apart from English. But I did come into contact with a range of interesting writers – many of whom were English speakers from America, Australia and the UK whom I taught English with. Of the Polish writers I met, Elzbieta Wojcik-Lees taught me a lot about translation through the Przekladaniec journal she edited at the Jagiellonian University. I also knew Ewa Chrusciel who wrote for that journal, and she has gone on to make a name for herself. I also collaborated with a VJ, Milosz Luczynski, who made amazing visual treatments of my poems which we projected as slides at readings. One of my wife’s friends was the poet Krzystof Kondracky who helped me to learn Polish – we also co-translated each other’s poetry. He gave me a signed copy of Szymborska’s poems as a leaving present when we moved to the UK (this was after she had won the Nobel). I did one public poetry reading when I lived there which Elzbieta organised with her husband Peter, who also worked at the university. They live in Copenhagen now. I also met Marcin Swietlicki – one of the most popular young poets in Krakow at the time. After I moved back I’ve kept in touch with the scene there and I’ve occasionally given conference papers in Krakow which have included poetry readings – I read alongside Robert Rehder twice – and when I was in Czech a few years back I met a poet called Franciszek Nastulcyk who lives in the same town as my parents-in-law. His wife Krystyna Kryzanowska-Nastulczyk is also a poet and I try to see them whenever I am over there. Later on I met and interviewed Tadeusz Pioro in Warsaw – which I published as an issue of The Radiator. That was a great experience – he’s such a sharp guy. Agnieszka Mirahina’s book Radiowidmo was one of the most exciting new books of poetry I’ve come across in recent years, so it was great to see her featured in Maintenant. In many ways Poland’s heritage of literary modernism has been as influential on my work as its contemporary poetry – reading Witold Gombrowicz’s Dziennik (Diary) was like a bomb going off in my literary life, and I went on to read his novels and co-translate a bit of one of the plays (Iwona) with my wife. Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz’s novel Nienasycenie (Insatiability) had a huge impact too.”
read the rest of this interview by clicking on the image above (external link to 3:AM Magazine)
