Project Description
Anna Blasiak
Anna Blasiak is a poet, translator, journalist and literature co-ordinator of the European Literature Network. Anna writes poetry in Polish and in English. Her bilingual poetry and photography book (with Lisa Kalloo) Kawiarnia przy St James’s Wrena w porze lunchu / Café by Wren’s St-James-in-the-Fields, Lunchtime is out from Holland House Books. Lili. Lili Stern-Pohlmann in conversation in Anna Blasiak is also out now.
Anna 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 (some as Anna Hyde). She has also translated into Polish 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, Rafał Gawin and Joanna Fligiel. 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, York Literary Review, Anomaly and Modern Poetry in Translation.
Anna has worked in museums and a radio station, run magazines, written on art, film and theatre. She regularly reviews books in translation for the European Literature Network, where she also runs a monthly poetry column Poetry Travels. She is one of the editors of Babiniec Literacki, a Polish page publishing poetry written by women. More: annablasiak.com.
***
A friendly fishmonger in the harbour
suddenly spews TV-hatred
as acrid and thick as toilet bleach.
His fish spoils faster.
I go vegan.
People are lighter
in the streets, ready for flight.
There is no looking each other in the eye.
Dense fear mutes
the tongues of other languages.
And then there is the “oh, we like your lot, it’s the others…”
I can still see the coast of France
when the air is clear,
but now I disbelieve.