An Evening of Polish Migrating Poetry: Grzegorz Wroblewski and friends

Poetry Reading and Discussion with Grzegorz Wróblewski and his translators, Piotr Gwiazda and Adam Zdrodowski

Introductiona and chairing: Steven J. Fowler and Marcus Slease

Kopenhaga is the first comprehensive collection of prose poetry by Grzegorz Wróblewski, one of Poland’s leading contemporary writers. The book offers a series of vignettes from the crossroads of politics and culture, technology and ethics, consumerism and spirituality. It combines two tropes: the emigrant’s double identity and the ethnographer’s search for patterns. While ostensibly focused on Denmark, it functions as an investigation of alterity in the post-cold war era of ethnic strife and global capitalism. Whether he writes about refugees in Copenhagen (one of Europe’s major transnational cities), or the homeless, or the mentally ill, or any other marginalized group, Wróblewski points to the moral contradictions of a world supposedly without borders.

Some quotes:

“Grim, glancingly beautiful, always necessary.”

—Joshua Clover

“Wróblewski is the true poetic chronicler of our 21st century diaspora in all its absurdities and anxieties … Kopenhaga is a journey to the end of the night that always makes a U-turn in the middle, to take in the latest folly—and also self-rescue mission—of the transplant. Read it and weep—and then laugh!”

—Marjorie Perloff

Programme:

1. Piotr Gwiazda about translating of Kopenhaga

2. Grzegorz Wroblewski (in Polish) Piotr Gwiazda (in English) reading excerpts of Kopenhaga

3. Marcus Slease and Adam Zdrodowski presentation of poetry (in Polish translation and English)

4. General discussion/question and answers

Wine reception after the event

All are welcome

Registration HERE.