sarah luczaj (phd)
artist, writer, creative regenerator
@emmabrownphotography
translations
from the Polish of, amongst other poets, Halina Poswiatowska, Anna Swirszczynska, Yuri Andrukhovych (a Ukrainian poet but I worked mainly from Polish translation), Olga Lalic-Krowicka, Robert Naczas, Grazyna Wojcieszko and Ida Sieciechowicz have appeared in Modern Poetry in Translation, 3:AM Magazine, qarrtsiluni, Poetry International, Zeitzug, Diner, lyric and The Cider Press Review, among other places.
'Trick of the Light' by Robert Naczas, The Tram Dream' by Grazyna Wojcieszko and 'Amplified Insides - A Soundtrack: Swing Baby Swing!' are full length collections.
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here are some tasters:
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yuri andrukhovych
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Absolutely Vodka
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Vodka fatally depraves
male company.
There has to be at least one woman –
or it’s straight to the grave. In the
third hour, the beast awakes,
in the fourth, waving
of razorblades or axes becomes possible –
in the fifth – tearful confessions,
kissing of hands and feet.
At least one woman is indispensable
so it doesn’t all look quite so revolting.
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This time, there was no lady,
and it was the fifth hour.
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He tries to read something
in my palm.
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Oh, he says, I can’t even
tell you the whole truth, y’know.
Say it, I say.
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(I’m past caring, though I’m ready
right now, for anything – thirty years old, because
I’m ready because it’s the fifth hour, because I have a right
to the truth, because it’s all the same to me).
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Oh, he says, I don’t even know
how to tell you, y’know.
Give it to me straight, I say.
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(I don’t give a damn, even now – cut veins
or a bullet in the head – in my only-just thirty years
because I’m wasted, because it’s the fifth hour, because I want
to know, however awful it might be).
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At the third attempt, he tells me
his ‘forty seven’. Ah – what relief!
A whole seventeen years! What space!
What transparency
on the horizons!
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I remember it as if it were yesterday:
around three am
the whole gang bursts out into the fresh air
everything drunk, no cigarettes left,
stumbling, we cut through the darkness.
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Then suddenly something like this:
I wipe my sweaty palm on the green grass, yes, exactly,
green because it’s the middle of April.
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from 'Songs for a Dead Rooster'
trans Sarah Luczaj
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grazyna wojcieszko
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Blue day
Yurek,
the sea is talkative today
it's having a talkative blue day
and the waves brought in a stormy
rabble
on the beach a shocked herring
shocked that it's not working
its just not working for him at all
swimming
his mouth won't shut
his mouth won't shut and his lips
flap in the wind and remember
something
his tail records on the sand
on the sand it writes of the stomach
of the eaten-up bowels
of the liver
he gazes with an astounded eye
an ever paler eye
he looks at the misty world
and the sky
the sky is azure blue today
he has an azure blue day of indecision
he doesn't know what to do what to do
with his memories
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from 'Incantation'
trans Sarah Luczaj
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ida sieciechowicz
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YOU NEED TO
You need to stand. Up. Amongst other things. For instance. The forest base. Slightly moist must. Wind breaks in the branches. The river’s cut off. The nailed bridge hangs. Children fall asleep like truck drivers. At the edge of the road. The train goes on. Someone’s hair touches the bars. How high is freezing? How low does god go? A woman holds a watering can in an abandoned hand. Long dusk soaks all the way along the stem. The sacks are probably hidden. The murdered don’t remember. Those who kill would rather not. I rip the tiny fishbones from the meat, it takes years. Wilted nooses go pale. Daybreak’s skint, smokes a roll-up. Flu winter. February snow. A crushed huddle of people walk into the glassed cabin. There is no smoke. It moves.
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from 'Amplified Insides - A Soundtrack: Swing Baby Swing!'
trans Sarah Luczaj
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