Wisława Szymborska Award 2014

The Award Committee of the Wisława Szymborska Award 2014 selected 5 nominated books out of 171 volumes published in 2013 and submitted for the second edition of the international poetic competition: Wojciech Bonowicz for the volume Echo (Echo), Biuro Literackie; Jacek Dehnel for the volume Języki obce (Foreign languages), Biuro Literackie; Mariusz Grzebalski for the volume W innych okolicznościach (In Other Circumstances), EMG publishing company; Julia Hartwig for the volume Zapisane (Written Down), a5 publishing company) and Michał Sobol for the volume Pulsary (Pulsars), Nisza publishing company). The name of the winner will be known on 25th October during the Award Gala which will be held in the ICE Krakow Congress Centre.

In 2014, poets belonging to three generations were nominated by the Award Committee of the Wisława Szymborska Award. Along with the doyen of Polish poetry, Julia Hartwig, a peer of Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński and Tadeusz Gajcy, also Wojciech Bonowicz, Mariusz Grzebalski and Michał Sobol, who represent medium-aged generations were nominated. The youngest nominee, 34-year old Jacek Dehnel, is an experienced writer, with extensive output seemingly not corresponding to his age. In 2014, like in the first edition of the Award, the nominated books are very diversified and using different styles. Only the subject matter, i.e., everyday life in all its dimensions and colours, is actually shared by all the poets, as each of the nominees focuses on describing reality, the daily life and ordinary activities and experiences. At the same time, however, each of them does it in a different way, emphasises different values and notices other phenomena. Bonowicz opts for death and metaphysical anxieties; Dehnel drifts towards irony, simultaneously inducing a collision of distance and closeness; Hartwig moves within the sphere of nature and culture, while Grzebalski makes the past experience a starting point for his reflections. In this way each poet works the reality out and chooses different filters, images and tones.

Popularization of poetry, the less and less popular art, is the purpose of the Award. The Wisława Szymborska Foundation wants not only to attract the readers, but also publishers. It wished to encourage them to print the works of Polish authors and to publish foreign poetry in translation, as the latter is rather poorly present on the Polish book market.

The Wisława Szymborska Foundation is the organiser of the competition. The Wisława Szymborska Award has an international status and it is granted every year for a book of poetry published in Polish in the preceding year. Entered for the Award may be poetic volumes published originally in Polish or in translation to Polish. The books may be submitted by the authors themselves, as well as by publishing companies, cultural institutions, literary media and the Award Committee members.

More information about the award and nominees may be found on the website: www.szymborska.org.pl.