Press photo of Tadeusz Dąbrowski
The talented Polish poet of the young generation joins his fellow poets from Great Britain and across Europe for a week of meetings and readings in London, Oxford, St Andrews and Edinburgh
Tadeusz Dąbrowski's latest collection of poems Black Square was nominated for Poland's prestigious Nike Literary Prize in 2010 and was endorsed by such iconic poets as Adam Zagajewski and Tomasz Różycki, as well as Boston Review editor Timothy Donnelly. In the introduction Rożycki writes that this is poetry
that smelts its inheritance into something new, modern, and original, something dynamic, paradoxical, constantly in motion, a poetry that is engaged with today’s world in so many of its manifestations, leaping from theme to theme - art, travel, sex, love (presented in all its succulence, no doubt, and with complete candor, as if this most fragile of human affairs was the only constant in life), computers, camera lenses, Europe, America, quotations from philosophers, and rock lyrics - in its ambitious gambit to comprehend a world that remains elusive and undescribed.
Tadeusz Dąbrowski is 32 years old and lives in Gdańsk. He has made a name for himself as a poet and also a critic, essayist and editor-in-chief of the bimonthly literary journal Topos. He is a recipient of many scholarships and international awardsm such as the Kościelski Award (2009), Hubert-Burda-Preis (2008), the Polish Culture Foundation Award (2006) and the Splendor Gedanesis (2007). His poetry has been translated into many languages and was featured in prominent magazines, including Poetry Wales, Boston Review, and American Poetry Review. He has published six books of poetry, being called the inheritor of the metaphysical tradition in Polish letters, and praised for his playful treatment of language even as he writes on weighty subjects.
He starts off his tour in London on the 12th of March at the New European Poetry series at St. Paul’s Pavilion Southbank Centre as on of three major European poets, alongside Nikola Madzirov and Daniele Pantano. On the 15th of March he is in Oxford to present Black Square at the Albion Beanik bookstore and on the 17th he arrives in St. Andrews for the StAnza International Poetry Festival, presenting a reading with translator Antonia Lloyd-Jones and British poet Rachel Boast. The following evening he takes part in a poetry breakfast on Translating the Image, a discussion on the joys and problems of translating poetry and poetic imagery with Antonia Lloyd-Jones, Nikola Madzirov and Bernard O’Donoghue. On the 18th of March he presents Black Square at an evening event at the Ukranian Club in Edinburgh.
Dąbrowski promoted the book in the United States last year and says he hopes the UK tour will be just as successful and expresses optimism for the reception of his works abroad, remarking that
In one's country it is not always easy to be read really empathically, without all the flat labels such as a classicist or a barbarian... A foreign audience reads a poem without any preliminary assumptions, without the knowledge to which "poetry school" you have been ascribed by literary critics. This is fresh and nice.
Read an interview with Dąbrowski at www.3ammagazine.com
Tour Programme
- Monday, 12 March, 7:45 pm
London, St. Paul’s Pavilion, Southbank Centre
Belvedere Road, London SE1 8XX
- Thursday, 15 March, 5:30 pm
Oxford, Albion Beatnik Bookstore
34 Walton Street, Oxford OX2 6AA
- Saturday, 17 March, 11.30am-12.30 pm
St. Andrew's, StAnza Scotland's International Poetry Festival
The Undercroft, St John's House, South Street
- Sunday, 18 March,10.00-11.00 am
St. Andrew's, StAnza, Scotland's International Poetry Festival
The Byre Theatre, Abbey Street – Studio Theatre
- Sunday, 18 March, 6:00-8:00 pm
Edinbrugh, The Bar, The Ukrainian Club
14 Royal Terrace
The tour has been organised by StAnza, with the support of Kingarroch at the Byre and Fisher & Donaldson, and in partnership with the Southbank Centre and Maintenant, awe well as the Polish Cultural Institute in London and the Polish Consulate in Edinburgh.
Source: www.polishculture.org.uk, www.zephyrpress.org