21 and 22 November 2022, 5.30pm

Knox Shaw Room and Chapel Court 2, Sidney Sussex College

Organised by Judith E Wilson Centre for Poetics and Cambridge Polish Studies (Slavonic Studies Section)

21 November 2022 (Monday), Knox Shaw Room, Sidney Sussex College

5.30pm – two talks on contemporary Polish poetry:

Marta Koronkiewicz: “Melancholy on Mars: visions of the future in contemporary Polish poetry” Paweł Kaczmarski: “The politics of new Polish poetry: 2008 to today”

6.30pm – poetry reading and Q&A with Radosław Jurczak (translation provided by Roderick Mengham)

22 November 2022 (Tuesday), Chapel Court 2, Sidney Sussex College

5.30pm – poetry translation workshop with Roderick Mengham, Radosław Jurczak, Marta Koronkiewicz and Paweł Kaczmarski

Radosław Jurczak is a poet, philosopher and mathematician based in Warsaw, Poland. Author of two books of poetry – Pamięć zewnętrzna [External Memory, 2016] and Zakłady holenderskie [Dutch Books, 2020] – he has received, among others, the Bierezin Award, the Iłłakowiczówna Award, the Silesius Award, and the Warsaw Literary Award. English translations of his poems were featured by Versopolis. He is a senior editor for “Kontent”, a journal of poetry and poetry criticism. In his poems, he blends aspects of high modernism with sci-fi conventions and a genuine interest in the language of modern science.

Roderick Mengham was a recipient of the Cholmondely Award for poetry in 2020 and is the author of several poetry publications including Unsung (2006), Chance of a Storm (2015), Grimspound & Inhabiting Art (2018), 2019 the vase in pieces (2019) and of translations, including Speedometry [poems by Andrzej Sosnowski] (2014). He was co-editor and co-translator of the anthology Altered State: The New Polish Poetry (2003). His most recent book is Midnight in the Kant Hotel: Art in Present Times (Carcanet, 2021). He is also Emeritus Reader of Modern English Literature at Cambridge University, where he is a Fellow of Jesus College.

Marta Koronkiewicz is a literary critic and assistant professor of modern/contemporary Polish literature at the Faculty of Letters, University of Wrocław. She has published a book on Andrzej Sosnowski (I jest moc odległego życia w tej elegii, 2019), co-edited an anthology of new Polish poetry (Zebrało się śliny, 2016) and a selection of poems by Tomasz Pułka (Podczas siebie, 2018). She co-edits “8. Arkusz”, a poetry-oriented monthly supplement to “Odra”, and “Widma/Spectres”, a Krakow-based journal of American and Polish poetry. She is a senior editor for “Praktyka Teoretyczna/Theoretical Practice”, a Marxist journal of philosophy and social theory.

Paweł Kaczmarski is a literary critic and a researcher at the Faculty of Culture Studies, University of Wrocław. He has published two books on modern and contemporary Polish poetry (Wysoka łączliwość, 2018; Oporne komunikaty, 2021), co-edited an anthology of new Polish poems (Zebrało się śliny, 2016), and edited several books of poetry and criticism. He co-edits “8. Arkusz”, a poetry-oriented monthly supplement to “Odra”, and “Widma/Spectres”, a Krakow-based journal of American and Polish poetry. He is a senior editor for “Praktyka Teoretyczna/Theoretical Practice”, a Marxist journal of philosophy and social theory, and runs a poetry section in “Nowy Obywatel”, a journal of politics and economy.