click on image to go the Guardian article…
our latest test copy of OFF_ANTHOLOGIA stolen again…
first film ready to burn and ship (see trailer on Home page)…
I’m off to visit Zeszyty Poetyckie in Gniezno…
Travel with Pawel Gawronski (see foto right) and his guitar…
Filming, translating, seeing the other side of the Grey Zone – the fields, the seas, the mountains…
See you back here in two weeks time – OFF_Marek
Today is the 21st of April. One month until the opening of the FESTA FATUORUM festival in Gniezno. Over 140 poets have already sent in work for the competition which closes on the 1st of May. More is to come.
The jurors from Zeszyty Poetyckie will then then have seven days in which to choose the list of finalists. On the 7th of May, they will send me the best 20-30 entries. They will also invite the short-listed poets to be at the FESTA FATUORUM festival in Gniezno, opening on the 21st of May, where the ultimate winner will be announced.
On the 8th of May, I will set off on a two week journey around Poland (plane tickets already booked). Just me, my video camera and a bag of poems. As I travel around, I will film everything I see and translate the poems. I will also try and visit as many Polish poets as I can.
Muses willing, I will arrive in Gniezno for the opening of FESTA FATUORUM, where I will film the festival, interview the poets I will have been translating, then head back to London to edit the film and finalise the translations.
The translations will then appear in two separate volumes of poetry – the collected anthology of 20-30 poets (3-5 poems each) and the winning poet’s own individual collection. The film of my trip of discovery will then be given away free on DVD with every copy of the two books (which will be available separately or as a twin set).
marek kazmierski, OFF_PRESS londyn
“The information I had about Sopot was really limited: I resisted buying a travel guide, researching the area, or following a predetermined route. The journey had to be a meander, a ‘wandering walk’, that is, a ‘psycho-geographic’ journey and not a tourist trip, I wanted to provide more than just a recorded journey but actually feel like I had taken people there. I wanted to get the idea across of the delights and insights into visiting somewhere for the first time that is seen afresh with new eyes, and I hope to have captured that spontaneity in my images.”
38 year old Fine Art student, Katrina Burtles, set out with a simple intention. To travel from Southend library to Sopot library and document everything in between for an exhibition… read more by clicking on the foto on the right
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no excuses… OFF_ is a house of perfectionists, who won’t let you have anything short of best.
anthologia book & film were almost there at the launch, but finishing touches still needed – should be on sale end of next week
Brits say; God is the detail. Poles say: Devil’s in the detail. OFF_ says they’re both right.
“The moment I heard that the biography of the late Polish ‘journalist of the century’ was being written, I knew there’d be some debate. I was right. Because if in Poland someone is ‘great’, he is also an untouchable saint…
To read more, click on the image to the right and visit Cafe Babel
“He has been voted the greatest journalist of the 20th century.”
By the same species which made Simon Cowell and Joseph J Hitler millionaires.
Click on the photo if you want the Guardian to explain…
Think you can do better, write in, we’ll publish it.
Our bestest friends, Minimalbooks, an on-line journal going the other way – publishing lots of English language writing in Polish translation, as well as some fabulous Polish language writing in the original, has just revamped.
Cleaner and sharper than before, pay them constant visits…
click on the image to go there…
OFF_EDS
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Marek K went to the Bedroom Bar in Shoreditch yesterday, met a whole heap of young, talented, keen2create Poles.
If all goes well, OFF_ will be collaborating with PdC on monthly live events… Here is a quote from their (soon to be rebuilt) website;
After a very successful Discussion Forum held at the Guernica Space, Whitechapel Gallery in London Polish deConstruction is in motion of planning an exciting year of events. With the new committee on board PdC is also in a process of uplifting its website so watch this space.
For regular updates on our progress and upcoming events sign up to our newsletter. Alternatively you can find us on Facebook.
From January 2010 PolishdeConstruction returns with its informal monthly meetings. All of you who love to chat about art join us in a mix of vibrant conversation and some edgy jazz.
Christopher Reid wins Costa book prize and picks up £30,000 prize
and huge increase in readership for A Scattering –
which has sold less than 1,000 copies
courtesy of The Guardian
Samuel Johnson remarked that “a translator is to be like his author, it is not
his business to excel him” — and there is something in this.
To convey the writings of other languages is a noble and necessary art -
an article in recent Times…
“There is one problem with the myth about pirates bringing literature to the masses:
street-level vendors tend to congregate in the same middle and upper-class neighborhoods
where you find the bookstores. Their clients are people with money. One critic calls it
a cultural problem: “The same people who would never consider buying fake whisky
think nothing of buying a pirated book. There’s no respect for intellectual production
in this country.”
courtesy of today’s Guardian… click on the image to see/read more and come back later in the week
to check out OFF_VIDEO interview with John Freeman, the Editor of GRANTA
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London snow-bound, perfect for working on the website. Launch date nearing – Wed the 13th be our lucky lady tonight
