Ordinary Sun, Coeur De Lion, Off Press, Calvert Gallery

The end of week is coming fast. It has been my spring break. I got an HIV test (negative), some blood tests for all sorts of goodies (awaiting), vision test (and a new pair of glasses coming in two weeks), 20 new poems (and revisions). So a health check and writing week.

Got two terrific books in the post today. Matthew Henriksen's Ordinary Sun (from Black Ocean) and Ariana Reines Coeur De Lion. Last week I got Destroyer and Preserver by Matthew Rohrer (Wave Books).

So when the madness starts next week with 3 hours of daily commuting, I am well armed with mighty fine books!!!

Next week I will be going to a Vispo celebration/exchange with 75 or so poets. SJ Fowler has put it together.

Ewa and I are working on Freudian supermarket comics (from Spanish Fork) for the occasion.



Tomorrow I'm reading some Grzegorz Wroblewski (translated by Adam Zdrodowski) and Yu Jian (translated by Ron Padgett) in East London. Calvert Gallery. Off Press.

I am reading in the second half as part of Steven Fowler's Maintenant Series. Other British poets reading translations are: Gabi Labi, Patrick Coyle, SJ Fowler, and Tim Atkins.

Here are the details if you around (from the main organiser Marek kazmierski from Off Press):



The event is the culmination of a two-month contemporary arts programme at the Calvert 22 gallery in Shoreditch, and we want to round things off with an intelligent and impassioned bang. 


I will start by screening a tiny clip from a Polish political gangster film, using it to develop a discussion on untranslatability. 


Next, we will have a slot called "Polish literature around the world in 80 seconds", looking at the myriad of Polish writers who went into exile in the 20th century (and mostly never came back), the literary, historical, gender, ethnic and other aspects of this flood of "lost" writers. 


The following discussion will be led by Dr Ursula Chowaniec from UCL/SSEES, who has written a lovely critique of both Wioletta Grzegorzewska's book and the introduction in it.


Then we will read some of Wioletta's poems, 


Then drink some wine, smoke some fags, sell some books...


Then we turn over to Maintenant Series - taking the celebration of translated verse beyond my tiny publishing house and opening it up to new languages, interpretations and possibilities. 


marek kazmierski
www.off-press.org

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