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Biography

Grażyna Wojcieszko (born in Poland in 1957) is a poet, translator and active culture manager. She has published six collections of poetry and is the recipient of several Polish poetry awards. Her poetry has been widely anthologized and translated into several languages. Two collections of her work have been made available to French readers by Editions Caractères. Her recent work lies at the intersection of poetry, music and film.

 The poet is a graduate of Literary-Artistic Studies at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow (2005). With an MA in computer sciences from the prestigious French universities Paris-Sud (1985) and Pierre-et-Marie-Curie (1987), she was employed by the European Commission in Brussels until 2018, managing scientific research projects. She presently manages the Foundation czAR(T) Krzywogońca, based in a small village in Poland. The foundation hosts many exciting events throughout the year, which includes a robust calendar of activities and events that are geared towards poetry writing, granting financial support for books publishing, and hosting a writer-in-residence program. It is a place where writers, artists, and the public come together. The website of the foundation: www.cz-art.org

 


Grażyna Wojcieszko made her debut in 2000 with the collection In waiting.  In   Carousel (2005), and then in the bilingual poem The slaughterhouses of Brussels/ Les abattoirs de Bruxelles (2008), the artist defined her identity as a poet: radically overturning words, in stubborn pursuit, drilling down and reaching beneath the skin of reality, under the wallpaper of illusions and delusions — to the heart of the matter.

Long periods of time spent in Bory Tucholskie have inspired Grażyna to write the poems collected in the volumes The Tramway Dream (2013), Incantation (2016) and the short story collection Animalki (2018). The French editions of Rêve de tramway and Envoûtement, translated by Alain van Crugten, are associated with the Collection Planètes initiative, which brings together exceptional poets from different parts of the world. The series was published by the Paris publishing house Éditions Caractères.

The collection Incantation won the Grand Prix in the VIII ‘Granite Arrow’ Polish Poetry Contest in 2016, and also was shortlisted in the II Tymoteusz Karpowicz Contest.

In  2018, she published Animalki, her first short stories collection.

Grażyna Wojcieszko’s poems inspired the artist Paweł Deska to create the animated films Cornflowers and Poppies and Who you are. These then became the inspiration for Maja Koman — the author of a music video based on the piece Flying away. Fourteen of Grażyna’s poems were recently set to music, with a collaborative album entitled ‘Don’t talk about love’ completed in 2020 as a result of the collaboration of three artists: the poet Grażyna Wojcieszko and musicians Maja Koman and Remi Juśkiewicz. In collaboration with Maja Koman, the poet made her first steps as an actress and scriptwriter for music video clips. The results can be viewed on her YouTube channel.

 She has been invited to read at many international poetry festivals, including Spring of the Poets (Le Printemps des poètes) in Luxemburg, the Parisian Poetry Market (Le marché de la poésie), the Canadian Festival International de la Poésie de Trois-Rivières and Spanish Ponte Poética Pontevedra.