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brought me their beautiful poems, and I tried to publish them in various magazines. I knew them, but they didn’t know about each other. That’s why I organised the first meeting. And that’s how it started and continues. Arkadi- usz Lorenc, currently a journalist and author of several reportage books, passed through. Jakub Piątek, last year’s winner of the Orzeł Polish Film Award for the “Pianoforte” mov- ie, sometimes attended our meetings. And poets: Anna Michalska-Sapkota, Katarzyna Jeznach, Marika Wymazała, Katarzyna Mag- da, Alicja Królewicz, Kamila Klimczak, Jakub Ludziejewski, Jakub Pokojowczyk, Jarosław Maj, and many others. Eight years ago, Piotr Spottek joined us. He came to interview me and... stayed. Since then, we’ve been co-creat- ing a music and literature program called Pod Wielkim Dachem Nieba (Under the Great Roof of Heaven), currently broadcast by Islanders Radio in the UK and RMI Radio, where I pres- ent contemporary Polish and foreign poetry. My latest poetic discoveries are Sławomira Sob- kowska-Marczyńska and Artur Sczesny. Sław- ka lives in Poznań. In her youth, she was the Polish champion and a finalist in the world and European championships in artistic gymnastics. She’s been writing poems for pleasure since childhood. It was only four years ago that she contacted me through a mutual friend. I’ve al- ready edited two of her volumes. Artur Sczesny is a traumatologist, songwriter, composer, gui- tarist, and... karate fighter. He lives in Jasienica near Bielsko-Biała. I’ve also edited two volumes of his poetry, consisting of poems he’s been writ- ing since youth. I hope his next collection to be published in your “Biblioteka LiryDramu” (the LiryDram Library) series.
Translated by Agnieszka Rezanow-Stöcker
MARIA DUSZKA lives in Sieradz. She is a poet, journalist, cultural animator, and graduate of library science at the University of Łódź. She has published eleven volumes of poetry. The most recent is the Polish-English collection Wiersze wybrane / Selected poems (2024). Her works have been translated into several foreign languages. They have been published in Topos, Akcent, Wyspa, Tygiel Kultury, Odra, Przekrój, Modern Haiku (USA), Reibeisen (Austria), Kyiv (Ukraine), Krantai and Naujoji Romuva (Lithuania) and in anthologies published in the USA, Serbia, and Germany. Her works have also been presented on Lithuanian Television, TVP Polonia, PR1, at Piwnica pod Baranami, and at Anna Dymna’s Kraków Poetry Salon.
She has published articles, essays, reports, reviews, and interviews in Topos, Fraza, Kalejdoskop, Przegląd Bałtycki, Znad Wilii, Gazeta Kulturalna, Piosenka, and on the Culture Avenue website (USA). She attended the Polish Culture Festival “PolnischerSommer 2010” organised in Germany. Between 2013 and 2024, she was a seven-times participant in “Maj nad Wilią” - the International Poetry Festival. She twice participated in the “Goście Radziwiłłów” literary residency. In 2022, Remi Juśkiewicz won third prize at the San Remo Senior International Competition in Italy with the song “Kamienieję”, composed to her lyrics.
Since 2017, she has been presenting contemporary poetry in the Cztery ściany wiersza series during the Pod Wielkim Dachem Nieba programme on the Islanders Polish-American Radio (UK). Her recordings of poems are also broadcast on the Polish community radio station Radio 3ZZZ in Australia. She is the founder and supervisor of the “Anima” Literary Circle. She’s also a member of the Poznań branch of the Polish Writers’ Union. She has received scholarships from the ZAiKS Authors’ Association and the Marshal of the Wielkopolska Province. The Minister of Culture and National Heritage awarded her the Prize for Creative Achievements and the Decoration of Honor “Meritorious for Polish Culture”.
www.maria.duszka.pl
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