Grzegorz
Wróblewski (Poland / lives Denmark)
1962
Grzegorz
Wróblewski was born in 1962 in Gdansk and grew up in Warsaw, Poland.
Since
1985 he has lived in Copenhagen after publishing nine volumes of poetry and two
collections of short prose pieces in Poland, three books of poetry, a book of
poetic prose and an experimental novel (translated) in Denmark; and selected
poems in Bosnia-Herzegovina (Mostar 2002). He has also published a selection of
plays. His work has been translated into eight languages.
English translations of his poems/plays
have appeared in numerous magazines, including London Magazine, Poetry
London, Magma Poetry, Parameter Magazine, Poetry Wales,
The Delinquent, Chicago Review, 3rd bed, Eclectica,
and Mississippi Review, and in the anthologies: Altered State: The
New Polish Poetry (Arc Publications, Todmorden, UK 2003), Carnivorous
Boy Carnivorous Bird (Zephyr Press, Brookline, USA 2004), A Generation
Defining Itself – In Our Own Words (MW Enterprises, USA 2007).
BOOKS
OF POETRY
Ciamkowatość
życia
(Kraków-Warszawa: bibLioteka - Fundacja “bruLionu," 1992); Planety (Kraków-Warszawa:
bibLioteka - Fundacja “bruLionu,” 1994); Dolina królów, (Białystok:
Biblioteka “Kartek,” 1996); Symbioza, barbarzyńcy i nie (Legnica: Centrum
Sztuki-Teatr Dramatyczny, 1997); Prawo serii (Bydgoszcz: Instytut Wydawniczy
“Świadectwo,” 2000); Wybór (Warszawa: Lampa i Iskra Boża, 2003); Pomieszczenia
i ogrody (Warszawa: Biblioteka Narodowa/Duński Instytut Kultury, 2005); Noc
w obozie Corteza (Poznań :Wojewódzka Biblioteka Publiczna i Centrum
Animacji Kultury, 2007); Pan Roku, Trawy i Turkusów (Katowice:
Wydawnictwo FA-art, 2009)
ENGLISH
LANGUAGE TRANSLATIONS
Our
Flying Objects – Selected Poems (Cambridge, UK: Equipage Press, 2007); These
Extraordinary People (Liverpool: erbacce-press, 2008); Mercury
Project (Claremont, USA: Toad Press, 2008); A Rarity (West
Somerville, Massachusetts: Cervena Barva Press, 2009); Kopenhaga (trans.
by Piotr Gwiezda) (Brookline, Massachusetts: Zephyr Press, 2013); Let’s Go
Back to the Mainland, trans. Agnieszka Pokojska (Červená Barva Press, 2014);
Zero Visibility, trans. Piotr Gwiazda (Phoneme Media, 2017)
HACIENDA
Old
González, who feeds on grass
and
collects fag-ends under the tables.
They
say that he once ate tortoise
to
become immune from the coming
epidemic.
(Americans throw him lettuce
leafs
now!) Since that time tortoise have
never
left him. González crawls on the ground
in
silence. Filthy and popular as no other
tortoise
in the vicinity.
—Translated
from the Polish by the author and Malcolm Sinclair
TRUE
FRIENDS
Some
times it’s women with a false diamond
in
the ear, other times gossiping parrots
or
failed politicians.
There
came often to my uncle’s house, a priest
in
company with a professor in corpse
conservation.
They played poker
and
drank peppermint liquor.
They
had a good time together.
I
also knew a man who chose
loneliness.
(He had a passion
for
silence and vermin crawling
on
the walls!) When he died,
he
bequeathed his body.
He
was a huge man.
He
lasted many months.
—Translated
from the Polish by the author and Malcolm Sinclair
VALBY
LONGSTREET
a
brothel (250 per head)
a
slaughter-house (a sweetish, sickly smell)
a
barber (clips old men who are already dead)
this
is my danish space and specifically
Valby
Longstreet
a
tired house-painter in white overalls
goes
in, makes quick love
and
leaves in his van from which
a
folding ladder protrudes
(the
butcher shovels up the red grease
from
the street)
but
I can’t go so suddenly in
and
come so quickly out
—Translated
from the Polish by the author and Malcolm Sinclair
(IN
A MOMENT SOMETHING BAD WILL HAPPEN)
In
a moment something bad will happen,
something
I’ll be forced to forget quickly.
Or
just the opposite.
Who
knows their fate? An old washerwoman
hangs
bed-clothes on lines between the trees.
When
she sees the clear sky she is happy again.
—Translated
from the Polish by the author and Malcolm Sinclair
RETURN
TO THE BEGINNING PLACE
Stooping
streets and bars on the windows.
(Inhabitants
guard their hard-won rings...)
It
occurs to me that I recognise some faces.
Someone
suddenly answers my greeting.
The
last day I pass a girl, whom once I loved.
The
girl is dirty and limps. She doesn’t see me.
She
disappears pulling a hand-cart filled
with
glass, old newspapers and ripe tomatoes.
—Translated
from the Polish by the author and Malcolm Sinclair
PERMISSIONS
____
Poems
copyright ©2010 by Grzegorz Wróblewski. English language translations ©Grzegorz
Wróblewski and Malcolm Sinclair.
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