And so, what you really want to tell me
is that I am now the old times. Yes,
the present does not correspond to the past,
or, what’s worse, does not let itself be invited
for coffee and cultured conversation.
Read the rest of this entry »
Polish Writing’s stimulating interview with Soren Gauger, Krakow-based Canadian translator.
Click on image to read…
Bio below… for Polish readers, more of same po polsku na indepenedent.pl
Soren A. Gauger grew up and was educated in Vancouver Canada. He moved to Krakow, Poland in 1998 to study Polish language and literature. Having taught literature at Jagiellonian University, he is now a freelance writer and translator, regularly contributing articles on culture to The Krakow Post and Month in Krakow. His fiction has appeared in journals internationally, including Capilano Review, Chicago Review, Jacob’s Ladder, and Prague Literary Review, as well as a chapbook of short stories, Quatre Regards sur L’Enfant Jesus (Ravenna Press, 2004). His translations include Waiting for the Dog to Sleep by Jerzy Ficowski and Wojciech Jagielski’s Towers of Stone (Seven Stories Press), and he is currently translating Bruno Jasienski’s novel I Burn Paris, to be published by Twisted Spoon Press.
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
Frankfurt, Flughafen
I
The restaurant is rather empty. The blank tables, their very centres, set with salt and pepper. White Chinese women, with the air of porcelain dolls, help themselves to heaped plates of colourful food from the buffet.
II
White sausage-shaped planes are laid out in even rows, each one labelled with a brightly coloured rudder. Those waiting in the departure lounge from time to time cast hungry looks their way.
Poems
The writing of a poem is the shielding of uttered words (words with simple meanings) with additional dependencies: phonetic links, semantic relativities, visual connections – we protect them, make access more difficult, in the understanding that we are no longer in Eden, and therefore words should not go naked either. Not to write poetry means: to behave as if one were still in Eden.
…
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.
Evening time. Workers streaming out of factories and workshops, vanishing somewhere in empty space. The chill of rotting leaves slowly envelopes all. Before us once more the vast and rather inconsequential mystery of life playing itself out – slowly seeping through everything.
Icy silence, black abandoned trees, grey empty parks, hollow streets, the smell of chimney smoke, alleys abandoned and extinguished, littered with leaves. The light cool already, slowly departing, so unlike that which fully warms in July. Now is time to put on a thick sweater, a woollen scarf and hole up somewhere far from people. Reading books, firing up the stove, taking long walks in deserted parks, studying this slow and silent provincial life; shrunken women wandering through the dusk after work, shopkeepers noticing and with some ever so subtle gestures letting us know they too sense the same melancholy and the cool, ancient sadness, in spite of their inherent coarseness. Read the rest of this entry »
