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Fall-Winter Edition of the Cosmopolitan Review

The Fall-Winter edition of the Cosmopolitan Review has been published. Here’s the preview:

Poland has been commemorating anniversaries all year and those of us observing from a distance have shared in the country’s happiness. True, some of those anniversaries mark events that were far from happy, but now they are not only far in the past but also signify a remarkable endurance and resilience.

To share this joy, CR’s own Justine Jablonska put together a photo essay illustrating these significant dates with selected personalities from the arts, letters and politics of this successful country. We also invited Andrew Nagorski to say a few words, which he does with elegance and affection. And we have musicians from Wawel (top left) for a rousing chorus of Sto lat!

But as faithful readers all know, CR’s Poland is wherever there are Poles, and we hope our British friends forgive us if the sun never sets on us for a change. This issue, we write about Poles in Africa from the perspective of people who cherish the memory of their enchanted childhood, complete with an escape from the clutches of a monster. They hold regular reunions in Wrocław. A refugees’ reunion, you ask? It’s a psychological and social phenomenon Amanda Chalupa feels compelled to study.

About the same time that Polish kids frolicked with boa constrictors in Africa, Polish cabaret stars entertained Polish troops serving in the Polish II Corps under General Władysław Anders. Beth Holmgren, who has made interwar cabaret her own, introduces us to some very talented people as The Cabaret Goes to War.

Whatever has been said about the long communist era, artists find a way. Justine Jablonksa reviews Eric Bednarski’s beautiful film about dreamy neon signs created in a system that never delivered the goods that were advertised. A bit surreal? Tune in to the conversation.

Still with films, Małgorzata Dzieduszycka casts a sensitive eye on Jan Komasa’s MIASTO 44 and on Warsaw Uprising. There will never be a last word on this event, nor could it be otherwise.

Ben Paloff muses on the poet laureate of the wartime generation, Krzysztof Baczyński. Is he, as Magda Romańska suggested, “Bob Dylan, William Shakespeare, Pablo Neruda and James Dean rolled into one,” or is he more like Keats, or maybe Marcel Proust?

We move on to the 2nd largest Polish city in the world, Chicago, specifically Stuart Dybek’s Chicago. Agnieszka Tworek explores this gifted writer’s perceptive and sympathetic stories about the gritty immigrant neighborhood of Chicago, and has a few questions for the award-winning author as well.

We are pleased to have another review by the young Toronto-based historian, Michał Kasprzak, whose great writing could upstage the authors under discussion. But with consummate skill, he instead seduces people to read – and maybe even buy! – the book. In this case it is the new history of modern Poland by Brian Porter-Szücs who examined Poland and came up with a startling diagnosis: Poles are normal people, just like everybody else. Some of us have long suspected as much but were waiting for a professional confirmation. Kasprzak will fill you in.

And we end with a fitting finale. Pomp, history, great plans and good feelings fill Martin Grzadka’s account of Canada’s first state visit to Poland. Yes, much business was discussed but the warm bilateral relations were the icing on the cake for a young professional proud to be a citizen of both countries.

Before we go, we invite you to look at our About Us page, where we introduce our stellar cast of Contributing Editors. We look forward to an exciting 2015.

Art, Events, Media, Poetry, Poland - Polish - Polonia, Political, , , , , , , , ,

Summer Issue of the Cosmopolitan Review

The summer issue of the Cosmopolitan Review has been published. The authors note:

The arts, in all their variety, are mirrors that reflect a people. We owe so much to artists. They make us laugh, cry, think, and see ourselves in our infinite variety, so no wonder we admire those talented people who create images, words and music that enrich our lives.

This issue, we focus on them, whether we find them working in films, theatre, or galleries, composing music or performing it, writing plays or acting, or writing prose or poetry. You’ll find them all represented here.

Let’s start with the movies. For that we’re grateful to Agnieszka Niezgoda and Jacek Laskus, whose marvelous book, Hollywood.pl, introduces us to some of the most talented people to ever leave Poland – not necessarily forever – and make their mark in the dream capital of the world.

Hollywood has been a talent magnet for a long time and one of the first superstars was Poland’s Pola Negri. Justine Jablonska reviews her story written by Mariusz Kotowski.

Poland’s poets… as once written in the New York Times, “if cash money were on the line…” few critics would bet against Polish poets being the best in the world. With that in mind, Agnieszka Tworek spoke to award-winning translator Joanna Trzeciak about her work – and her friendship – with two of the greats: Wisława Szymborka and Tadeusz Różewicz.

And speaking of poets, Magda Romanska introduces us to a poet and playwright who also happens to be a Nobel Prize-winning scientist, Roald Hoffman. Join them for a discussion about the arts and science, and about Polish roots.

Beth Holmgren revisits prewar Polish cabaret… and its postwar reappearance in Tel Aviv.

Meanwhile, Lara Szypszak has a few suggestions about galleries, performances and generally low cost and easily accessible culture in Warsaw. Join her.

An anthology of modern Polish plays, (A)pollonia, came to our attention via Will Harrington. The eleven plays, some performed in many countries, are set in Poland but deal with universal themes.

Łukasz Wodzyński returns to CR to share his love, and understanding, of modern Polish literature with an essay about the Introduction to Polish Literature by Jarosław Anders and a review of a new edition of Gomrowicz’s Diary, with the great writer’s thoughts on everything from the Catholic Church to Marxism, and the human condition in general.

Finally, there’s that long established and very special art form that, over time, has left us a record of some of the most interesting people in every culture: letter writing. We bring back that most colorful member of the original, 19th century Polish Society of California – not to mention a great American patriot, Rudolf Korwin Piotrowski, in a translation of previously unpublished letters found in the library of Jagiellonian University by the research/writing team, Maureen Mroczek Morris and Lynn Ludlow, who seem to travel between centuries with the greatest of ease.

And another writer whose letters transcend time and place, Krystyna Wituska, will be remembered in Germany on June 26th with a new book and a monument unveiled by the Memorial Centre in Halle Saale. A young member of the Polish underground, her words about war and peace, friendship and love, hairstyles, fashion, literature and fun, as well as life and death, were written to her parents and also – in what must be a unique prison correspondence – to the daughter of her compassionate German prison guard. Seems Wituska’s letters were written for our troubled times.

Enjoy the summer, read a lot, visit galleries and theatres, go to movies, and tip your hat to the creative people who make all this possible.

Events, Poetry, Poland - Polish - Polonia, , , , , , ,

Preserving language – beauty and distinctiveness

The nuances in Polish language make it particularly beautiful, poetic, and musical. In addition, it allows for plays in language that are useful in conveying meaning and humor. It has helped Poland and Poles everywhere in standing up to countries and dictators.

From the Associated Press via Yahoo News: Poland campaigns to preserve its complex spelling

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Polish language experts launched a campaign Thursday to preserve the challenging system of its diacritical marks, saying the tails, dots and strokes are becoming obsolete under the pressure of IT and speed.

The drive, initiated by the state-run Council of the Polish Language, is part of the UNESCO International Mother Language Day. The campaign’s Polish name is complicated for a non-Polish keyboard: “Je,zyk polski jest a,-e,.”

That’s a pun meaning that Polish language needs its tails and is top class. Part of the meaning is lost and the pronunciation sounds wrong if the marks aren’t there.

alfabetComputer and phone keyboards require users to punch additional keys for Polish alphabet. To save time, Poles skip the nuances, and sometimes need to guess the meaning of the message that they have received. This is also true for IT equipment users of other languages with diacritical marks…

As part of the new campaign, some radio and TV stations are playing songs with words stripped of diacritical pronunciation, making them sound odd to the Polish ear. A rap song concludes: “Press the right Alt sometimes” to obtain Polish letters, referring one of the keyboard buttons that Poles need to press to write characters with diacritical marks.

In Poland, linguist Jerzy Bralczyk said the diacritical marks are a visual, defining feature of the Polish language, and they carry meaning and enrich the speech.

“Today, the Polish language is threatened by the tendency to avoid its characteristic letters,” Bralczyk said. “The less we use diacritical marks in text messages, the more likely they are to vanish altogether. That would mean an impoverishment of the language and of our life. I would be sorry.”

The tails make “a” and “e” nasal, strokes over “s,” “c” and “n” soften them and sometimes make them whistling sound, a stroke across “l” makes it sound like the English “w,” and a dot over “z” makes it hard like a metal drill. And each change matters.

“Los” means “fate,” but when you put a slash across the “l” and add a stroke over the “s” it becomes “elk.” “Paczki” are “parcels,” but “pa,czki” are doughnuts.

Foreigners who know Polish say the diacritical marks are a visual sign that it’s a tough language and that they add to the complexity of the grammar and vocabulary, which does not derive from Latin or from Germanic languages.

…

In Romania, the tongue’s tails on “t” and “s,” circumflexes on “a” and “I” and hats on “a” are ignored even by state officials and institutes. Some words have up to four diacritical marks, and not using them changes the pronunciation and, in some cases, the meaning, to the point of no meaning at all.

Art, Events, Poetry, Poland - Polish - Polonia, Political, , , , , , , , , ,

Cosmopolitan Review Fall 2013 Issue Posted

From the Cosmopolitan Review: A Transatlantic Review of Things Polish, in English

Photo of Górecko Kościelne, Poland by Sławomir Nowosad
Photo of Górecko Kościelne, Poland by Sławomir Nowosad

As we admired our favorite photographer’s beautiful Polish sunset, it occurred to us that – to paraphrase a well-known imperial boast – the sun never sets on the Polish diaspora. They are everywhere, in their infinite variety, and what luck we have to stay in touch, even if only virtually.

This issue of CR is largely about Polonia – to use the term that defines all Poles outside Poland – plus a couple of guests, in keeping with the longstanding tradition of Polish hospitality. So, guests first.

Roy Eaton, a New Yorker who came to Montreal and captured the hearts and imaginations of students at the Quo Vadis conference, won the first Kościuszko Foundation Chopin Competition in 1950, but that is but one of many firsts for this gracious and talented man. His music is a must for fans of Chopin and Joplin.

Staying with music, Justine Jablonska catches up with Katy Carr, not an easy thing to do given the international demand for Katy’s performances. And check out Katy’s work with British school kids. For her part, Kinia Adamczyk introduces us to a Montrealer who is a musician, a poet, a writer and a chef, and all of that in Polish, Hebrew, Arabic, German, French and English. If only he would invite us to dinner!

And speaking of poets, we like to think that Linda Nemec Foster wrote her poem just for us. She didn’t, except in the sense that it is for all of us. “I am from America and Poland…” Yes.

We introduce Agnieszka Tworek who introduces us to the marvelous work of Boston architect and artist, Monika Zofia Pauli. It’s a feast for the eyes.

Three immigrant stories, each one so different from the next: one looks back at the very different Canada that welcomed him – sort of – in 1946; another looks at Poland because she knows she didn’t just come out of thin air; and one tells us about his grand world tour – just the thing to broaden one’s education – with great wit and style.

And then there were those clever Poles who by-passed the cold, cold north and headed straight for sunny California. It’s the 150th birthday of the Polish Society they started. They couldn’t attend the party but you really must meet them.

Check out the review of the new book about Krystyna Skarbek/Christine Granville. British author Clare Mulley’s extensive research and obvious admiration for the enigmatic spy is a great read.

Vince Chesney and Stephen Drapaka weigh in with their reviews of some fascinating if misguided, even malevolent, ideas once promoted by people who should have known better.

Finally, all roads lead to Poland. Another paraphrase of an imperial boast but yes, this road leads to Warsaw, the premiere of Andrzej Wajda’s film, Wałęsa, and Małgorzata Dzieduszycka’s thoughtful review.

Poetry, Poland - Polish - Polonia, Xpost to PGF, , , , , ,

Poet Tadeusz Dąbrowski Gives Reading at UMass Amherst

From the University of Massachusetts – Amherst: To mark the beginning of Polish Culture Month, Polish poet Tadeusz Dąbrowski is presenting a bilingual reading at the University of Massachusetts Amherst on Wednesday, Oct. 2 at 7:30 p.m. in 301 Herter Hall. The reading is being hosted by the Amesbury Professorship in Polish Language, Literature and Culture at UMass Amherst.

Born in 1979, Dąbrowski has been called “an inheritor of the great metaphysical tradition in [Polish] poetry” and “an essential factor in the picture of contemporary [Polish] verse.” Critics have described his poetry, which has been published in numerous Polish and foreign journals, as “restlessly inventive, sharp-witted, and intent on raising mischief” and as “full of love, swagger, and linguistic excitement.”

Dąbrowski is the author of seven volumes of poetry, including the bilingual collection “Black Square,” with translations by Antonia Lloyd-Jones, published in 2011 by Zephyr Press in Boston.

The event is free and open to the public. Free parking is available in campus lots and at metered spaces after 5 p.m.

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Current Events, Events, Media, Perspective, Poetry, Poland - Polish - Polonia, , , , , , , ,

The Cosmopolitan Review – Summer Edition

The Cosmopolitan Review, A Transatlantic Review of Things Polish, in English has issued its Summer 2013 edition jam packed with books, art, poetry, events, and excellent information.

CR welcomes summer, as does Poland. And nowhere is the summer solstice more beautifully welcomed than in Poland, with the ancient festival of Wianki (wreaths), when barefoot girls in white dresses bring floral wreaths to a river’s edge, cast them in the water, and leave them to fate’s caprice.

The wianki, elaborate works of art involving branches, flowers and candles, float downriver to the delight of children and adults alike. More wreaths are fashioned into floral crowns embellished with figures of birds, butterflies and anything else the artistic imagination can come up with. Extravagance has no limits on this day; the hats of Ascot pale by comparison perhaps because wianki – as opposed to hats – is not a commercial enterprise. One can only hope that this festival will forever stay as it is, that Hallmark will never create Wianki greeting cards, and shopping malls will never have Wianki Day Specials. Though purveyors of food, drink and music are welcome. And we’ve just learned that there is a Wianki fest in Washington, D.C. Good to know in case you don’t make it to Kraków next year.

Luckily, “Poland” is wherever Polish people are, as is stated so eloquently in Hanka Ordonówna’s wonderful book about children when their Poland was just “two rooms.” For thousands of us, Poland has been, at one time or another, in India, Africa, New Zealand, Mexico and beyond.

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In this issue, we highlight India, mainly because of the marvelous book by Indian author Anuradha Bhattacharjee, The Second Homeland: Polish Refugees in India. That Polish landscape included elephants, exotic fruit, generous Maharajas and a superb cast of characters ranging from cabaret stars to theosophists.

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Books, as always. Michał Kasprzak weighs in on Marci Shore’s The Taste of Ashes; there’s a review of Magda Romanska’s new anthology of Bogusław Schaeffer’s works. And two writers have a problem with Agata Tuszyńska’s Vera Gran.

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On the light side, an Englishman’s adventures – misadventures? – begin with his future bride’s father saying “No.” He also notes that while English weddings are heavy on speeches, Polish weddings emphasize food and dancing. He indulges in the eternal rivalry between Kraków and Warsaw as well, so to cool that, CR puts the spotlight on enchanting Zamość.

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And now to food! As noted in The Guardian: No processed cheeses, no tinned fish, no just-add-water packets… think Provence, with beetroot. Which brings us to two new Polish cookbooks, Polish Classic Desserts and From a Polish Country Kitchen, both reviewed in this issue.

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Finally, as noted above, Poland is wherever Polish people are and for several summers they were in Canmore, Alberta, at Poland in the Rockies. There were fond hopes that a new cycle of this lively symposium would begin again in 2014 but fate decided otherwise. In this issue, CR bids a formal Farewell to Poland in the Rockies.

Art, Poetry, Poland - Polish - Polonia, , , ,

Literary awards, social media

Found in Translation Award:

The Polish Book Institute, the Polish Cultural Institute in New York, and the Polish Cultural Institute in London announced that the winner of the Found in Translation Award for 2011 is Joanna Trzeciak for her translation of Tadeusz Różewicz’s “Sobbing Superpower”, published by W. W. Norton & Company (USA). This award is in recognition of exceptional translation quality, and the great importance of the text awarded. The volume, counting over 300 pages, is a selection of Różewicz’s poems covering all the periods of his work.

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Poland’s top literary award

Marek Bieńczyk was awarded the Nike Award, Poland’s most prestigious literary prize for “Książka twarzy,” which translates as ‘A Book of the Face’, the work is described by the author as ‘my Facebook’.

The book is a collection of essays which blend elements of various genres, including poetry, press articles and criticism, and merge intellectual discourse with autobiographical reflections on a wide range of subject matter, from literature and films to tennis and wine. Nike jury chairman Tadeusz Nyczek described the book as ‘Bieńczyk’s grand self-portrait’.

Mr. Bieńczyk is a graduate in French studies at the University of Warsaw. In addition to pursuing a teaching career at the Institute of Literary Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences, he is a prolific writer and translator from the French. He also wrote the novels Terminal and Tworki (the latter translated into English by Benjamin Paloff) and several collections of essays and literary criticism.

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Polish Social: A new Polish Webzine

Polish Social, a new webzine, is the brainchild of two Chicago women with a commitment to community, a pulse on Chicago’s art & culture scenes, and a belief in the power of networking and organizing. It provides links to events, job opportunities, innovators in disparate fields; and provides news of interest to a new generation of Polish Chicagoans.

Being Polish in Chicago is sort of a tale of two cities – in one (the collection of Polish communities that dot this city), there is a strong culturally Polish identity, in the other (the city of Chicago as a whole), there is an opportunity for Poles from all fields to step into leadership positions and showcase the Polish community as a vibrant and essential part of this city’s fabric.

You can subscribe to the site via the home page subscription icon or by E-mail. You may also add events or items for the editorial team to cover by sending an E-mail.

Art, Media, Poetry, Poland - Polish - Polonia, , , , , , , ,

Books for the New Year

Tatra Highlander Folk Culture in Poland and America

From John Guzlowski: Thaddeus Gromada, a retired professor of European History and one of the great authorities on Tatra Highlander culture, has written a book that sets the record straight on the Górals.

The book consists of a series of short, very readable essays on the people of the highlands, their history and their ways and what happened to them when they came to America. A number of these essays talk about Prof. Gromada’s own roots in the highland.

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From writers in Australia

Four self-published workers from writers in Australia at Favoryta including Moja Emigracja/My Migration, an exploration of the cross-cultural experiences of Polish migrants to Australia. It is a collective study of migrant experience by twenty one contributors in Polish and English. Also, Okruchy/Crumbs by Aleksander S. Pęczalski, a volume of poetry and autobiography in Polish.

Finding Poland

From John Guzlowski: In the last few years, a number of excellent books about what happened to the Poles who were taken east to Siberia by the Soviets during World War II have appeared. To this short list must be added Matthew Kelly’s Finding Poland. Part memoir, part history, part family biography, part eulogy for a generation quickly receding, Kelly’s book will touch any Polish-American who has ever looked at old photographs of grandparents whose names have been forgotten or stared at yellow pages written in Polish sixty, eighty, or a hundred years ago.

And as an adult, a historian teaching at the University of Southampton, UK, he set out to answer the questions that he must have asked himself as a boy: Who were those people in those fading photographs, why were they taken from their homes, what did they suffer, and how did the suffering change them?

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The Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery

Captain Witold Pilecki had the distinction of being the only known person to smuggle into Auschwitz, so he could report back to the Allies about the conditions there. They didn’t listen. They thought he was exaggerating.

Pilecki, who was one of 150,000 Polish prisoners, was at Auschwitz from September 1940 to April 1943, and witnessed its transition from a P.O.W. camp to an extermination camp before he escaped. Like so many others Polish freedom fighters, he was tortured by Communist authorities after the war. Pilecki was executed at their hands in 1948. Compared with the Communists, “Auschwitz was easy,” he said after his sentence was pronounced. His body has never been recovered.

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A Polish Book of Monsters/Spellmaker

Among the short form finalists for the 2012 Science Fiction and Fantasy Translation Awards (for works published in 2011) is Spellmaker by Andrzej Sapkowski, translated from the Polish by Michael Kandel (A Polish Book of Monsters, Michael Kandel, PIASA Books). Spellmaker contains five stories of speculative fiction from dystopian science fiction to fabled fantasy, these dark tales grip us through the authors’ ability to create utterly convincing alien worlds that reflect our own.

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Lune de Miel

From John Guzlowski: From the first stanza of the first poem in this amazing collection, you know Amy Nawrocki is ready to transport you through the magic of her poems to some exotic, crazy, and unimaginable place, a lover’s Paris.

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Walking on Ice

Agnes, a young girl in Poland, shares her life with us as she tries to find her place in her family and her country. But the more she learns, the more out of place she becomes. When Comrade Stalin dies, Agnes’s father pushes the limits and is sent to prison for crimes against them. So now Agnes and her mother are alone in the icy waters of an oppressive system run by an unpredictable government. Agnes starts to learn the difference between truth and lies, how things may appear and how they really are.

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Strangers in the Wild Place

In 1936, the Nazi state created a massive military training site near Wildflecken, a tiny community in rural Bavaria. During the war, this base housed an industrial facility that drew forced laborers from all over conquered Europe. At war’s end, the base became Europe’s largest Displaced Persons camp, housing thousands of Polish refugees and German civilians fleeing Eastern Europe. As the Cold War intensified, the US Army occupied the base, removed the remaining refugees, and stayed until 1994. Strangers in the Wild Place tells the story of these tumultuous years through the eyes of these very different groups, who were forced to find ways to live together and form a functional society out of the ruins of Hitler’s Reich.

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Kaia, Heroine of the 1944 Warsaw Rising

Kaia, Heroine of the 1944 Warsaw Rising tells the story of one woman, whose life encompasses a century of Polish history. Full of tragic and compelling experiences such as life in Siberia, Warsaw before World War II, the German occupation, the Warsaw Rising, and life in the Soviet Ostashkov prison, Kaia was deeply involved with the battle that decimated Warsaw in 1944 as a member of the resistance army and the rebuilding of the city as an architect years later.

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Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin

Professor Timothy D. Snyder was honored with the prestigious Polish award – Kazimierz Moczarski Award for Historical Research – for his book “Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin.” Professor Snyder also received the 2012 Jerzy Giedroyc Award.

Americans call the Second World War “The Good War”. But before it even began, America’s wartime ally Josef Stalin had killed millions of his own citizens — and kept killing them during and after the war. Before Hitler was finally defeated, he had murdered six million Jews and nearly as many other Europeans. At war’s end, both the German and the Soviet killing sites fell behind the iron curtain, leaving the history of mass killing in darkness. Bloodlands is a new kind of European history, presenting the mass murders committed by the Nazi and Stalinist regimes as two aspects of a single history, in the time and place where they occurred: between Germany and Russia, when Hitler and Stalin both held power.

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Daughter of Poland: Anna Bibro

The suffering of the Jewish people during WWII has been well documented, but we have heard little about the lives of others during the war. Anna was an ordinary citizen growing up in prewar Poland. She graduated from a teaching seminary and was married shortly thereafter. The bliss of married life ended August 1939 when Polish troops requested that her husband report to the local armory immediately. She would not see him again for nine years. By early September bombs began dropping and food was scarce for her and her two-year-old son. Russian troops soon invaded and travel was restricted. Farmers were not allowed to bring their goods to market. Anna barely escaped getting sent to Siberia.

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Coal & Ice

The revised second edition of Coal & Ice, an original memoir of fiction and poetry, includes fiction and poetry published in various literary journals including The Paris Review, The California Quarterly, The Rocky Mountain Review, The Minnesota Review, Aspen Anthology, Green House, and The Ohio Journal. Passionate, gritty poetry, Phil Boiarski magically weaves the emotions poetry is meant to evoke. His ability to stitch the memories of yesteryear, when humanity was more aware of nature and the settling of North America by the old Europeans, is stunning.

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Events, Poetry, Poland - Polish - Polonia, Political, , , , , , , , ,

Polish Film, Art and Book Festival

The Polish Chair at Canisius and the Polish Legacy Project are presenting the Polish Film, Art and Book Festival at Canisius College, 2001 Main St., Buffalo, NY from Wednesday, November 7th to Monday, November 19th. Presentations include:

  • Wed. Nov.7 – 7 p.m. “Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin,” Lecture by Dr. Timothy Snyder of Yale.
  • Mon. Nov. 12 – 7 p.m. Path to Glory (2011), Documentary film showing the epic story of the Polish Arabian Horse.
  • Thurs. Nov. 15 through Sat. Nov. 17, 1 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. and Sun. Nov. 18, 4 p.m.-6 p.m. – Book Fair – Thurs.-Sat. at Canisius. & Sun. Nov. 18 at Market Arcade Theatre. Books, DVDs & art on Polish topics for sale.
  • Thurs. Nov.15 – 1 p.m. – Andy Bienkowski & Mary Akers, talk about their book “One Life to Give…,” based on the experiences of Bienkowski as a child in Siberia.
  • Thurs. Nov.15 – 2 p.m. – Workshop by Bienkowski & Akers: “Writing Together: The Many Sides of Co-Authorship.”
  • Thurs. Nov.15 – 3:30 p.m. – Workshop by Wes Adamczyk, survivor of Soviet camps & author-“Writing From the Heart.”
  • Thurs. Nov.15 – 7 p.m. – Festival reception. Books, DVDs & art for sale.
  • Thurs. Nov.15 – 7:30 p.m. – Argentinian Lesson (2011), a film about an 8 year-old who moves to Argentina and learns about the world around him through 11 year-old Marcia.
  • Thurs. Nov.15 – 9 p.m. – Decrescendo (2011) Film showing the world of a nursing home through the eyes of a young therapist, who tries to find the meaning of his own life.
  • Fri. Nov. 16 – 6 p.m. – Wes Adamczyk presents “Living in the Shadows of Katyń,” about a family’s 10-year odyssey through multiple continents, and the Katyń Massacre.
  • Fri. Nov. 16 – 7:30 p.m. – Battle of Warsaw 1920 (2011) Film which tells the story of Poland’s battle vs. the Soviets through the eyes of two young people.
  • Sat. Nov. 17 – 4:30 p.m. – Workshop-Krysia Jopek: “Getting Your Work Published…”
  • Sat. Nov. 17 – 6 p.m. – Jopek, daughter of Polish WWII survivors, discusses her novel “Maps and Shadows”
  • Sat. Nov. 17 – 7:30 p.m. – Control Sample-Film about young Poles who live in four cities of Western Europe. Meet the Director.
  • Sat. Nov. 17 – 8:30 p.m. – 80 Million (2011) Film which portrays events of ten days before martial law.
  • Sun. Nov. 18 – 6:00 p.m. – Control Sample-Film
  • Sun. Nov. 18 – 6:30 p.m. – At the Market Arcade Theatre – In Darkness (2011) Film about one Catholic’s rescue of Jews.
  • Mon. Nov. 19 – 3:00 p.m. – Workshop-Poet John Guzlowski: “The Art of Listening: Writing Poems & Stories on Family.”
  • Mon. Nov. 19 – 7:00 p.m. – Siege-film by an American who documented Warsaw just before the Nazi invasion.
  • Mon. Nov. 19 – 7:15 p.m. – Guzlowski presents “Two Lives Shaped by World War II,”, the story of his parents’ lives as slave laborers in Germany.
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Inter-religious reflections on the name of God

Meditations on Divine Names is an anthology of contemporary poetry, featuring 138 poems by 63 poets associated with diverse spiritual traditions. Their poems represent: various branches of Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Kabbalah, Wicca, Sukiyo Mahikari, and ancient Greek, Egyptian, Hawaiian, and Slavic religions. The book is divided into ten paired sections: Naming, Names, Earth, Water, Air, Fire, He, She, Being, and Loving.

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The editor, Maja Trochimczyk is a poet, music historian, photographer and non-profit director. Born in Poland and educated in Poland and Canada, she published four books of music studies and three volumes of poetry. She describes herself as a Catholic mystic.

The poets belong to different religions or religious denominations. They see the manifestations of the divine in many aspects of life – personal prayer, religious ceremonies, singing of psalms, family relationships, nature, sun, sky, bread making, loving, and love making. They admire the colors of the sky and the liquid nourishment of water. The clarity of mountain air and the gentleness of human touch. From the four letters of YHWH to Lada or Pele, the anthology catalogs some unusual divine names. Poets reflect on the act of naming, the facts of knowing and unknowing of our God(s). They give testimony to their hopes and beliefs, and share what they find beautiful and inspirational, or, sometimes, disturbing. There is darkness around and death, but the poets look for ways to ascend above, to illumination.

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