Po / After is the sixth volume of poetry by Anna Piwkowska, author of previous volumes like Cień na ścianie / Shadow on the Wall (1990), Skaza / The Blemish (1996), Tylko trzy drogi / Only Three Roads (2000). She debuted towards the end of the 1980s, her poems appearing in publications like "Więź" ("Bond"), "Res Publica", "Dekada Literacka" ("Literary Decade"), "Kresy" ("Frontiers"), "Zeszyty Literackie" ("Literary Notebooks"), "Odra", "Fronda" ("Fronde"), "Tytuł" ("Title") and "Czas Kultury" ("Cultural Times"). Her poetry has been translated into German and Russian and in 1995 she received the Georg Trakel Literary Prize.
Anna Piwkowska is also the heroine of a recent film by Barbara Sass-Zdort titled Jak narkotyk / Like a Drug.
"Just as we are born with blue or brown eyes, so are we born with a love for music or poetry. I think that even if I did not write poetry, I would still be unable to keep myself from reading it. It is my way of communicating with the world. Few people are talented enough to consider life itself enough. I treat writing as if it were a gift, it gives me strength." (Anna Piwkowska)
"For Piwkowska the world is like a repeating scene in the theatre of existence where everything has already happened once, where pain and joy stubbornly play their parts and nothing can change the order of things that was set, sometime and someplace, once and for all. The poet's sole deep belief is in the magic of love, synonymous with the magic of art." (Adriana Szymańska)
- Anna Piwkowska
Po / After
Publisher: Wydawnictwo Nowy Świat 2002
ISBN 83-88221-75-2
A5, 48 pages, paperback
www.nowy-swiat.pl