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<H1>FANCIFUL ANTHOLOGY OF POLISH POETRY
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Can you imagine a country where one of the national newspapres of wide circulation regularly publishes poetry? It does happen in Poland - a country where poetry plays a role much more important than in any English-speaking country. Or can you imagine a country where young people memorise poems not because they have to learn them at school, but just because they like them? This, too, happens in Poland. There are even rock stars who use 19th century poems as lyrics for their songs and these songs get to the top of the charts.
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Why is that so? Is it because high quality of the Polish poetry (which has been appreciated outside the country as well, two Polish poets in the past 30 years even received Nobel Prize for literature)? Or is it the other way around - talented young people pursue poetry because of the attention it receives? Whatever the reason - it can be said that Poland is a country of poets.
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And this is a web site of Polish poets. Not an exhaustive one, not a result of any systematic work, I just happen to have translated some Polish poems into English and decided to put them here. The selection is absolutely arbitrary - I translated more or less what I fancied. It is therefore a fanciful anthology. I don't claim my translations to be in any way perfect or better than alternatives; if there is an alternative translation of any poem (there are a few), then my version should be treated as no more than ... well, an alternative version. But here they are, a handful of translations of Polish poems. For someone who knows little about Polish poetry it may give an idea of what it is like. You will find here Jan Kochanowski, Adam Mickiewicz, Czeslaw Milosz, Zbigniew Herbert, Wislawa Szymborska and more.
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This web site is plain - on purpose. No flashy stuff here, anyone who looks for this sort of things should leave this site immediately. This site is about the power of the word - and nothing else.
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<A HREF="01history.htm"> History of Poland and its poetry</A><BR>
<A HREF="02kochanowski.htm">Jan Kochanowski</A><BR>
<A HREF="03mickiewicz.htm">Adam Mickiewicz</A><BR>
<A HREF="04norwid.htm">Cyprian Kamil Norwid</A><BR>
<A HREF="05milosz.htm">Czeslaw Milosz</A><BR>
<A HREF="06herbert.htm">Zbigniew Herbert</A><BR>
<A HREF="07rozewicz.htm">Tadeusz Rozewicz</A><BR>
<A HREF="08harasymowicz.htm">Jerzy Harasymowicz</A><BR>
<A HREF="09szymborska.htm">Wislawa Szymborska</A><BR>
<A HREF="10bursa.htm">Andrzej Bursa</A><BR>
<A HREF="11wojaczek.htm">Rafal Wojaczek</A><BR>
<A HREF="12baranczak.htm">Stanislaw Baranczak</A><BR>
<A HREF="13krynicki.htm">Ryszard Krynicki</A><BR>
<A HREF="14kielar.htm">Marzanna Bogumila Kielar</A><BR>
<A HREF="15rembarz.htm">Maciej Rembarz</A><BR>
<A HREF="16kuciak.htm">Agnieszka Kuciak</A><BR>
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