the is of the silence in the room
the is of the walls, each so different
the is of the sunshine on the curtain
the greying is of the dust
through the thin is of the glass
the is of the sparrow outside the window
the is of the child on the grass, chasing a butterfly
the is of the butterfly in the net
the floating is of the cloud

and once again: I am

in this vast
circular spherical nobody’s
agape virulent scorching
grass-strong swift-winged quick-legged
dripping rabid
acute
is

by Krystyna Miłobędzka; translated by Elżbieta Wójcik-Leese

‘the is of the silence in the room’ is copyright © Krystyna Miłobędzka; translated by Elżbieta Wójcik-Leese, 2013. It is reprinted from Nothing More by Krystyna Miłobędzka, published by Arc Publications (2013).

This poem continues our series featuring work from collections shortlisted for The Poetry Society’s Popescu European Poetry Translation Prize 2015, judged by Olivia McCannon and Clare Pollard, and supported in 2015 by the British Council. The winner of the competition was Iain Galbraith, who translated Jan Wagner’s book Self-Portrait with a Swarm of Bees (Arc Publications, 2015). You can find out more about the competition and all the shortlisted books on the Poetry Society website.

Elżbieta Wójcik-Leese writes between English, Polish and Danish; her multilingual texts have appeared in such journals as Shearsman, Cordite Poetry Review, Modern Poetry in Translation, on the London Underground and in anthologies. She has published numerous translated collections including Nothing More (Arc, 2013), her selection from Krystyna Miłobędzka, and Salt Monody (Zephyr Press, 2006) by Marzanna Kielar. She has co-edited Carnivorous Boy Carnivorous Bird: Poetry from Poland (Zephyr Press, 2004), guest-edited Polish issues of Poetry Wales and Modern Poetry in Translation, and is a contributing editor at Poetry Wales, where she regularly reviews translated books. She teaches poetry-in-translation courses for the Poetry School in London and works at the Centre for Internationalisation and Parallel Language Use, University of Copenhagen. Arc’s website features three essays by Wójcik-Leese about her translations of Miłobędzka’s poetry.

Krystyna Miłobędzka was born in Margonin, Poland, in 1932. She is an author of twelve books of poetry, including a collected poems, Zbierane1960-2005 (Gathered 1960-2005), which appeared in 2006, and zbierane, gubione (gathered, lost) in 2010. She has been the recipient of numerous awards, was nominated for the NIKE Prize in 2006, and won the Silesius Award in 2009, and again in 2013 for Lifetime Achievement. She lives in Puszczykowo near Poznań. You can find out more about Nothing More on the Arc website.

Copyright information: please note that the copyrights of all the poems displayed on the website and sent out on the mailing list are held by the respective authors, translators or estates, and no work should be reproduced without first gaining permission from the individual publishers.

nasuwa się łąka, łąka łąk ta jedna na starość

przywykam do mijania twarzy

grobek w piasku, kwiatki krzyżyk „muszę zobaczyć kto
tam czy mewa ryba nic”, za falę będzie po nim

morza mam tyle ile przy nim stoję, nie pilnowane
rozpływa się w szare nie wiem

what comes to mind is meadow the meadow of meadows

the one for my old age

slowly I’m getting used to the passage of faces

a small grave in the sand a small cross and some flowers
‘I need to see who it is, seagull fish nothing’ in a wave
it’ll be gone

sea that much of it as I stand on its shore unattended it
spills slurs into the grey I don’t know

by Krystyna Miłobędzka, translated by Elżbieta Wójcik-Leese

Owing to essential maintenance work, the Poetry Centre website will not be available on Monday 21 and Tuesday 22 April, and so this week’s poem is being distributed early. Happy Easter to all our readers!

News from the Centre: for the first time since its establishment, Oxford Brookes Poetry Centre has established a formal link with another academic centre dedicated to the study of poetry. In March 2014 Oxford Brookes Poetry Centre entered into a partnership with the Irish Centre for Poetry Studies, which is based at Mater Dei Institute, Dublin City University, and is under the direction of Dr Michael Hinds. The link will raise the international profile of Brookes’ Poetry Centre, and facilitate collaborations based on existing and emerging research areas at both centres. Learn more about the Irish Centre for Poetry Studies at the Centre’s website.

‘what comes to mind is meadow’ by Krystyna Miłobędzka is copyright © Krystyna Miłobędzka, 2013, and translated by Elżbieta Wójcik-Leese. It is reprinted by permission of Arc Publications from the book  Nothing More , which is introduced by Robert Minhinnick, and is part of Arc’s Visible Poets series, edited by Jean Boase-Beier (Arc Publications, 2013).

Notes from Arc Publications:

Krystyna Miłobędzka was born in Margonin, Poland, in 1932. She is an author of twelve books of poetry. Her ‘collected’ appeared in 2006 and in 2010. Recipient of numerous awards, she has been nominated for the NIKE Prize in 2006 and won the Silesius Award in 2009, and again in 2013 for Lifetime Achievement. 

Nothing More crystallizes relationships between people from erotic engagements to the bond between mother and child. These are poems rooted in the earth and body, beginning in a physical experience that expands into philosophical questioning. They are not polite, they do not hide their imperfections. They reveal an immediacy of expression. Each text reveals itself seemingly uncontrolled, an unspecified thought: a sentence broken off, a sudden mental leap, an ellipsis, a slip of the tongue.

You can read further poems from Nothing More on Arc’s website, and a short essay by Elżbieta Wójcik-Leese about her translations of Miłobędzka’s work on the Voltage Poetry blog.

Since it was founded in 1969, Arc Publications has adhered to its fundamental principles – to introduce the best of new talent to a UK readership, including voices from overseas that would otherwise remain unheard in this country, and to remain at the cutting edge of contemporary poetry. Arc also has a music imprint, Arc Music, for the publication of books about music and musicians. As well as its page on Facebook, you can find Arc on Twitter. Visit Arc’s website to join the publisher’s mailing list, and to find full details of all publications and writers. Arc offers a 10% discount on all books purchased from the website (except Collectors’ Corner titles). Postage and packing is free within the UK.

Copyright information: please note that the copyrights of all the poems displayed on the website and sent out on the mailing list are held by the respective authors, translators or estates, and no work should be reproduced without first gaining permission from the individual publishers.