This piece is part of our Fall 2019 print issue.
Translated from Polish by Elżbieta Wójcik-Leese
Krystyna Miłobędzka was born in Margonin, Poland, in 1932. She has written plays for children, collected in Siała baba mak (A Pocket Full of Posies, 1995). As a scholar of children’s theatre she has published the monograph Teatr Jana Dormana (Jan Dorman’s Theatre, 1990) and the volume of essays W widnokręgu Odmieńca (In the Misfit’s Circumference, 2008). She is the author of thirteen books of poetry: Anaglify (Anaglyphs, 1960), Pokrewne (Of Kin, 1970), Dom, pokarmy (Home, Foods, 1975), Wykaz treści (List of Contents, 1984), Pamiętam (zapisy stanu wojennego) (I Remember: Writings under Martial Law, 1992), Przed wierszem. Zapisy dawne i nowe (Before the Poem: Writings Old and New, 1994), Imiesłowy (Participles, 2000), Wszystkowiersze (Omnipoems, 2000), Przesuwanka (Shifting Rhyme, 2003), Po krzyku (After a Shout, 2004), gubione (one by one lost, 2008), dwanaście wierszy w kolorze (twelve poems in colour, 2012) and Spis z natury (Written from Nature, 2019). Her collected Zbierane. 1960-2005 (Gathered: 1960-2005) appeared in 2006, and zbierane, gubione (gathered, lost) in 2010. Recipient of numerous awards, she was nominated for the NIKE Prize in 2006 and won the Silesius Award in 2009. In 2013 she was awarded the Silesius for Lifetime Achievement. She lives in Puszczykowo near Poznań.

Elżbieta Wójcik-Leese writes with/in English, Polish and Danish. Her visual poetry publications include preter/natural appetite for chalk (intergraphia, 2025) and convers(at)ion: sea fog chalk (Essence Press, 2024). Among her Polish poetry translations are: Song at Half Past Three (Wojciech Bonowicz; Literary Waves, 2026), Night Truck Driver (Marcin Świetlicki; Zephyr Press, 2020; longlisted for the 2021 PEN America Poetry in Translation Award longlist, finalist for the 2020 Big Other Book Award for Translation.); Salt Monody (Marzanna Kielar; Zephyr Press, 2006). She co-curates and runs ‘Transreading’ courses on translocal and hybrid poetries for the Poetry School in London. Her site-specific verbal and visual texts, often zines and artists’ books, use botanical inkmaking, cyanotype, pinhole photography and expressive handwriting. IG: @elzbietawojcikleese