The Radość Pisania: Manchester Polish Poetry Festival

Sharing the joy of writing

By Tomasz Wiech for Krakow City of Literature

The Radość Pisania: Manchester Polish Poetry Festival has been curated by poet Mark Pajak in response to his recent creative residency in Krakow, UNESCO City of Literature. The Manchester Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University is pleased to bring together visiting Polish poets with UK-based poets in a series of readings and writing workshops. The festival’s name means ‘The Joy of Writing’ in Polish and is taken from a poem by Wisława Szymborska – Polish poet, essayist, translator and recipient of the 1996 Nobel Prize. This festival is presented by the Manchester Writing School at Manchester Met in partnership with the British Council, Kraków UNESCO City of Literature and Manchester City of Literature.


FESTIVAL PROGRAMME:


Tuesday 30 October, 2-4pm
Celebrating Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska and Southern Cemetery Tour
The Lodge, Southern Cemetery, 212 Barlow Moor Road, Opposite Hilton's Memorials, Manchester M21 7GL
FREE, book online via EventBrite:

Join the festival on a tour of the Manchester’s Southern Cemetery with Manchester Green Badge Tour Guide Emma Fox, concluding in a special celebration of Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska, the “Polish Sappho”. Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska (born in Kraków 1891, died in Manchester 1945) is a legend of Polish poetry. However, her poetry is little known outside of her native Poland, even in Manchester where she is buried. We will be celebrating her life and work with a special commission from Southern Cemetery’s writer in residence, Tania Hershman. This event is part of the The Radość Pisania: Manchester Polish Poetry Festival.



Tuesday 30 October, reception from 6.30pm, readings from 7.30pm
Radość Pisania: Reception and Poetry Reading
Number 70 Oxford St, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester M1 5NH
FREE, book online

You are invited to attend the reception to launch The Radość Pisania: Manchester Polish Poetry Festival. This wine reception will be followed by a reading by some of Poland’s most exciting contemporary poets including Weronika Lewandowska, Michał Sobol and Ewa Sonnenberg. The event will be introduced by prize-winning poet Mark Pajak.  



Wednesday 31 October, 9.30am – 4pm
Radość Pisania: Poetry Writing and Translation Workshops
Special Collections, All Saints Library, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester M15 6BH. Meet at reception (ground floor)
FREE, lunch provided, book online

A special day of creative writing and translation workshops run by guest poets from Poland, including Weronika Lewandowska, Paweł Łyżwiński, Michał Sobol and Ewa Sonnenberg. Held at Manchester Metropolitan University's Special Collections, this a great opportunity to learn about and immerse yourself in Polish poetry. Sessions will cover the dialogue between poetry and visual arts, thinking with poetry, and translation.


BIOGRAPHIES

Weronika M. Lewandowska is a polish spoken word poet, performer, doctor of culture studies, as well as a curator of independent events of new media art (BYOB, Share Warsaw). Her spokenword verse rises beyond linguistic barriers. Weronika has hypnotized a multi-lingual audience many times, performing her melodic and sensual Slavic poetry and performative projects at the most important spoken word and poetry events all over the world.

Paweł Łyżwiński - philologist and cultural manager associated with Villa Decius (Kraków, Poland), where he coordinates international residency programmes for writers, i.a.: Kraków UNESCO City of Literature Residency Programme, Visegrad Literary Residency Programme and International Cities of Refuge Network Programme. After hours he is a football enthusiast, passionate poetry reader and translator, currently working on the Polish translation of Samuel Beckett’s Murphy.

Michał Sobol is a philosophy graduate, church historian and author of five poetry collections, three of which have won awards, most recently in 2017 the Gdynia award for the collection Schrony. Since 1998 he has lived in Zabierzów Bocheński, 45 km from Krakow on the edge of the Niepołomice Forest.

Ewa Sonnenberg is a graduate of the Jagellionian University in Krakow, a pianist and the author of eleven poetry collections, most recently Wiersze dla jednego człowieka (2017). Her work has been translated into German, French, English, Russian, Swedish, Slovenian, Hungarian, Serbian, and Macedonian. She lives in Wroclaw.


The Radość Pisania: Manchester Polish Poetry Festival
is part of a series celebrating and promoting literature in the principal community languages of Manchester, UNESCO City of Literature, including Manchester Met’s first Mushaira, an Urdu poetry event held in February 2018. Polish is one of the principal mother languages in Manchester, one of the world’s most multilingual cities. In 2020, Manchester Metropolitan will open the UK’s fourth public Poetry Library, whose collections will include representations of Manchester’s principal community languages, including Polish. For anyone interested in finding out more about the poetry library, its languages programme, or if you have any suggestions please contact poetrylibrary@mmu.ac.uk.

The Radość Pisania: Manchester Polish Poetry Festival is one of a planned series of bilingual and multilingual poetry events that seek to widen access to poetry in Manchester’s mother languages. Our aim is to introduce poetry in these languages to people who may already attend poetry events, and to join with the communities who speak these languages in celebrating their literature and culture. It would help us to develop and improve this project if you could answer a few optional questions when booking your ticket.

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