Friday, October 7, 7pm – Eastern European Poetry
Tadeusz Dabrowski, Martin Woodside & Adam Sorkin

Tadeusz Dąbrowski is a poet, essayist, critic, and editor of the literary bimonthly “Topos”. He has been published in many journals in Poland and abroad, including, in America, Boston Review, Agni, American Poetry Review, Tin House, Crazyhorse, Poetry Daily, Guernica, and Poetry Review. Altogether, his work has been translated into 20 languages. Winner of numerous awards, among others, the Kościelski Prize (2009), the Hubert Burda Prize (2008) and, from Tadeusz Różewicz, the Prize of the Foundation for Polish Culture (2006). Tadeusz is the author of six volumes of poetry, and the first collection of his poetry in English translation, Black Square has just been released by Zephyr Press. He lives in Gdańsk.

Timothy Donnelly writes: “Restlessly inventive, sharp-witted, and intent on raising mischief, the poems in Black Square are so much fun to read, it’s almost easy to overlook how deeply serious they are—and how dark. Dąbrowski is part life of the party, part heavy-hearted metaphysician, and he plays his two sides off each other like an expert comedy team with a knack for aphorism and philosophical speculation.”

Martin Woodside is a poet, translator, and a founding member of Calypso Editions.  His chapbook of poetry, Stationary Landscapes came out in 2009 (Pudding House), and his anthology of Romanian poetry, Of Gentle Wolves, came out earlier this year (Calypso).  Martin’s poems and translations have appeared in numerous literary journals, including Guernica, The Cimarron Review, The Hazmat Review, Brooklyn Rail, Poetry International, Poesis International, and qarrtsinluni. Martin spent 2009-10 on a Fulbright in Romania, studying Romanian poetry, and he’s currently a Presidential Fellow at Rutgers-Camden, pursuing a Ph.D. in Childhood Studies.

Ilya Kaminsky Writes: “Woodside’s translations perform miracles. There is no other way to say this: the poems are alive, they breathe, they laugh and howl, they re-create our world again. This is an anthology to live with: a sample or two from such established authors such as the venerable elders Marin Sorescu and Ana Blandiana, to many new voices that are restless, ruthless, ravishing and utterly lyrical.”

Adam J. Sorkin has translated more than forty books of contemporary Romanian literature, and his work has won the Poetry Society of the United Kingdom translation prize, among other awards. Sorkin’s recent books include A Path to the Sea by Liliana Ursu, translated by Ursu, Sorkin, and Tess Gallagher (Pleasure Boat Studios), and Ioan Flora’s Medea and Her War Machines, translated with Alina Cârâc (University of New Orleans Press), both 2011.  Forthcoming from Talisman House Publishers is The Vanishing Point That Whistles, an anthology of contemporary Romanian poetry. Sorkin is Distinguished Professor of English, Penn State Brandywine. Mark Strand writes: „Liliana Ursu’s poems are like flowers at the the edge of the abyss.  They are beautifully clear and precise, but behind them one glimpes the presence of an ineradicable dark.”