Tomasz Różycki/ Photo by Wojciech Druszcz; Reporter at East News
Celebrating a total of eighteen renowned poets from all around the globe – the event will be the biggest multilingual gathering of poets in the history of Hong Kong. This year’s theme is “Islands or Continents,” honoring Hong Kong’s unique geo-political status, as well as its potential for growth as an international poetry hub. Other poets participating in IPNHK 2013 are Adonis (Syria), Aase Berg (Sweden), Conchitina Cruz (The Philippines), Menna Elfyn (Wales), Lee Seong-bok (South Korea), Tim Lilburn (Canada), Zeyar Lynn (Burma), Dunya Mikhail (Iraq), Peter Minter (Australia), Olvido García Valdés (Spain), Jeffrey Yang (USA), Raúl Zurita (Chile), Natalia Chan (Hong Kong), Han Dong (mainland China), Lan Lan (mainland China), Un Sio San (Macau), and Ye Mimi (Taiwan).
It is exciting to highlight Tomasz Różycki’s appearance at this year’s event in Hong Kong. Born in 1970, Różycki studied and taught French in both Kraków and Opole. His translations from French include Stéphane Mallarmé's Un coup de dés jamais n'abolira le hasard in 2005. Różycki’s book-length epic poem Dwanaście stacji (Twelve Stations, 2004) was awarded the Kościelski Prize, known as the most prestigious literary prize for Polish writers under forty, and it was named the best “Book of the Spring 2004” by the Raczyński Library in Poznań. Różycki also has received the Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński Prize, the Joseph Brodski Prize from Zeszyty Literackie, and has been nominated twice for the Nike Prize, Poland’s most important literary award.
To give an essence of Różycki’s poems, one can describe them as rhythmic and sometimes grouped into ornamental traditions such as cycles of sonnets or songs with an apparent reference to early Polish poetry. While most of Różycki's poetry is the product of acute observation and transformation of his recollections into dream-like imagery, one ofhis most recent collections in specific, Colonies (Kolonie, 2006), manifests a sentimental journey to distant lands of childhood and imagination. [“Stick out your tongue for me, kitten./ I’ll tell you a story. Together again,/ as it so happens, language will betray us/ and kill the world, turn it to dew and ash.”] (From Różycki’s Creoles, Mestizosi in Kolonie (Colonies, 2006); translated by Mira Rosenthal with support from the PEN Translation Fund.)
IPNHK2013 is organized by the Faculty of Arts at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, the Faculty of Arts at The Hong Kong Baptist University, and the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Poetry lovers are welcome to attend accompanying activities, for which registration and scheduling details can be found on the official website.
Edited by Elcin Marasli/ 15.11.2013