ANNA BŁASIAK is a poet, translator, journalist and literature co-ordinator of the European Literature Network. She has translated over 40 books from English into Polish and some fiction from Polish into English – by Mariusz Czubaj, Wioletta Grzegorzewska, Jan Krasnowolski, Kaja Malanowska, Daniel Odija, Mirka Szychowiak, Irit Amiel and Renia Spiegel (mainly as Anna Hyde). She has also translated poetry by Maria Jastrzębska, Mary O’Donnell, Nessa O’Mahony, Vesna Goldsworthy, Martina Evans, Elżbieta Wójcik-Leese, Tishani Doshi and Pascale Petit – and, into English, by Mirka Szychowiak, Radosław Wiśniewski, Edward Pasewicz and Rafał Gawin. In addition to her book-length translations, her work has been published in Best European Fiction 2015, Asymptote, The Guardian, B O D Y Literature, Modern Poetry in Translation and York Literary Review.

Anna writes poetry in Polish: Więź, Kwartalnik artystyczny, Dekada literacka, ArtPapier, Kwartalnik Szafa, Śląska Strefa Gender, Nowy BregArt, Obszary Przepisane, Inter, Helikopter and Afront; and in English: Off_Press, Women Online Writing, Exiled Ink, The Blue Nib, Ink Sweat and Tears, The Queer Riveter and Modern Poetry in Translation. She has been shortlisted for several major poetry competitions in Poland and appeared in anthologies in Polish, English and Romanian. Her bilingual poetry book is due out on 16th April 2020. The book is available via her publisher here.

Anna has worked in museums and a radio station, run magazines, written on art, film and theatre.

MARTA DZIUROSZ is a Polish-English literary translator and interpreter, and a literary curator. She was Free Word Centre’s Translator in Residence (2015-16). She is a member of the Translators Association committee and works at the publishing house Pan Macmillan. Her translations and other writing have been published by Penguin Random House, Vallentine Mitchell, Asymptote, The New Statesman, Words Without Borders and The Linguist, among others. She was a finalist of the 2019 Jasmine Awards.

Poems by Anna Blasiak, translated by Marta Dziurosz

GARP

I got so absorbed
in nursing this silence
– I the sad sister
with no mercy
for spring,
which crept in stealthily.
 
Can’t believe it.
I touch - still can’t believe it.
 
Thimbles of unfeeling
on my fingers.
 
White slippers from Jenny Fields
sink ever more deeply
into the aseptic Sahara sands
– endlessly somehow.
 


***
 
 When I place my palm
on my face at night
what bothers me most
is the nose.
 
It needs to be bypassed
for sight to come together.
 
I stumble over it
to understand the tongue of tongue
and lips.
 
It is the axis
for the cobweb of wrinkles
from the forehead
to the chin.
 
It's only for smell
that I treasure it.
 


***
 
I unravel this sky
like blue thread from a ball.
And even get bored at times.
 
Fortunately I forget
that deep inside there's a cunning end.



***
 
I shell sweet pea seeds,
memories of summer
which isn't over yet although
November has suddenly broken out.
 
The unhatched promises of another summer,
another sweet wave outside,
are only black, hard poison for now.
 
I carefully turn each seed over in my fingers