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As a part of the 4th Miłosz Festival, poetry aficionados will have a unique opportunity to get to know new translations and new releases of foreign guests’ poetry collections, prepared by leading Polish publishing houses. This collection, just like Spiżarnia literacka (A Literary Larder) written by Miłosz himself, is an exceptional mosaic of words, feelings and impressions that pulls the reader into a world full of tenderness.
During the Festival in 2013, eight collections of the Festival guests’ poems, previously unpublished in Poland, were presented – among others the collected works of Wiera Burłak, Duo Duo, Juan Gelman, Philip Levine, Michael Krüger, Lew Rubinstein, and Gary Snyder. By presenting their works, the Miłosz Festival prepares the audience for conscious reception and discovery of art that was not yet translated into Polish. The collections of poems written by this year’s foreign guests will be published thanks to financial support from Fundacja Miasto Literatury (The City of Literature Foundation) and Krakow Festival Office.
Skrzydlate i ciemne (Winged and Dark) is a collection of poems by Robert Hass, which will be published by Krakow publishing house Znak. This outstanding American poet and a translator, who was a neighbour of Czesław Miłosz in Berkeley, will participate in a debate devoted to the meaning of contemporary poetry on the first day of the Festival.
Znak will also publish Blues o śnieżnym poranku (Blues on a Snowy Morning) – a collection of poems by Charles Simic, a Serbian-American poet, co-publisher of the Paris Review and the winner of Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and one of the guests of the 4th Miłosz Festival.
Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy (National Publishing House) will present a selection of poems of a British poet Ruth Padel, great-great-granddaughter of Charles Darwin. Her collection Sztuka Kintsugi (The Art of Kintsugi) was inspired by Wypisy z ksiąg użytecznych (Excerpts from Useful Tomes, published in the U.S. as A Book of Luminous Things) by Czesław Miłosz. During her special opening lecture she will talk about her relationship with works of the Polish poet.
Pisane na kamieniach (Written on stones), is a selection of poems by Marie Lundquist, one of the most original and interesting Swedish poets, who will meet with audience during the Festival in Krakow. The book will be prepared by Zeszyty Literackie.
The Pogranicze publishing house will publish Lot strzały (The Flight of an Arrow) by Ales’ Razanaŭ – a collection of poems by this recognised Belarussian poet, winner of Herder Award.
A collection of poems by Xavier Farré Vidal, a Catalonian poet and translator of works by Miłosz and Schulz, prepared by EMG, as well as Niespieszna żegluga(Unhurried Seafaring), written by Slovenian poet and essayist, Uroš Zupan and published by Instytut Mikołowski (The Mikołów Institute), will enrich this year’s edition of the Festival.
Readers of poetry will be surely delighted by the premiere of Przekłady poetyckie (Poetic Translations) by Miłosz, where Excerpts from Useful Tomes can be found. The works of Shakespeare, Blake, Baudelaire, Whitman, Jeffers, Auden, Eliot, Yeats, Lorca, Cavafy, Chinese poets, masters of Zen, and Kabīr, the mystic poet – a group of the most significant poets of the history – were also translated.
A book of the works of Kornelijus Platelis, a Lithuanian poet, essayist and translator of, among others, works by Miłosz, will also be published in Poland alongside the book by Viktorij Daujotyte and Mindaugas Kvietkauskas Litewskie konteksty Czesława Miłosza (The Lithuanian Contexts of Czesław Miłosz).
A Book of Luminous Things, the famous anthology of works from multiple epochs, selected and translated by Czesław Miłosz, is the main focus and theme of the 4th Miłosz Festival. The anthology contains works by among others, Walt Whitman, W.S. Merwin, Elizabeth Bishop, but also Wang Wei, Tu Fu, and Seamus Heaney. The Festival will be a gloss of sorts, a commentary to this famous selection and its contemporary interpretation. The invited guests represent various cultural and language circles, and their visit in Krakow will be marked by new translations and editions of poetry collections – and because of that a cooperation is built and strengthened between publishing houses, and the Festival itself becomes unique in its kind, since it is the only festival in the world that publishes its guests’ poetry.
Selected collections will be remarkable because of one more feature – they will be printed using the Miłosz font, designed by Damien Collot, the winner of the Type Design International Student Competition Milosz 2011, organised by New Art Foundation ZNACZY SIĘ on the 100th anniversary of the poet’s birth, with financial support from The Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. More information can be found on http://www.typemilosz2011.pl
All of this, and many more poetic revelations will await the readers and the audience of the Festival in the Festival Bookstore in the Palace under the Rams, managed by Księgarnia Pod Globusem (Bookstore Under the Globe).