Imani Perry, writer and professor at Princeton University commenting on “Crops”:
“I have found these poems to be emotionally compelling and profound. I expect fellow readers will enjoy this beautiful work”
31 October 2021
Category: reviews
28 October 2021
Richard Deming about “Crops”
Richard Deming, poet, art critic, and the Director of Creative Writing at Yale University, commenting on “Crops”:
“Grzegorz Kwiatkowski once said, “I think that we should be conscious about the evil that is inside every one of us.” In his collection Crops, Kwiatkowski’s taut, tense poems sound the depths of our darkest history. Masterfully rendered by Peter Constantine, one of our most brilliant translators, Crops reveals that the unforgettable is also the undeniable. Is it beautiful? I say it is powerfully necessary, unrelentingly direct. I say it burns.”
23 October 2021
Cynthia Zarin about “Crops”
The great writer Cynthia Zarin talks about “Crops”:
“In these searing, darkly beautiful, indelible poems, Kwiatkowski reminds us of what, at our peril, we must not forget.”
18 October 2021
3 Quarks Daily / Stanford University
“People in the know know him.” That’s what his English translator, Peter Constantine, told me. Grzegorz Kwiatkowski is becoming an important poetic voice from today’s Poland, with six volumes of poetry, and translated editions on the way. His translator added, “He has a strange poetic voice, very original and stark.”
16 October 2021
Sam Lipsyte about “Crops”
The great writer and post punk musician Sam Lipsyte talks about “Crops”:
“These poems are brutal, strangely exquisite, and, unfortunately, still necessary. With his words and his music and his relentless campaign of stark honesty and regenerative connection, Grzegorz Kwiatkowski is a genuine glimmer of hope in a darkening world.”
30 August 2021
Haldern Pop Festival / Louder Than War
Ploughing up this Garden of Good Intentions, like some industrial digger carving through a site of special scientific interest, were Trupa Trupa. The four piece rock band from Gdansk have a formidable new record in the offing, and we got the odd number: poppier and more direct in approach.
“The Polish poet Grzegorz Kwiatkowski admits to his poetic affinity with Edgar Lee Masters. Although he borrows his approaches from Spoon River Anthology, Kwiatkowski emphasizes the differences too: ‘I’m very interested in history. My grandfather was a prisoner in Stutthof, the Nazi concentration camp east of what used to be the Free City of Danzig. Later he was forced to become a Wehrmacht soldier.’ Kwiatkowski’s poems explore not only conflicted pasts of Central and South-Eastern Europe (for example, the Nazi T4 Euthanasia Program), but also the paradoxes of contemporary genocides, for instance in Rwanda. As the poet explains, ‘I’m intrigued by the combination of ethics and aesthetics in one person, one life, one story.’ His minimalist poems have been perceived as quasi-testimonies, ‘full of passion, terror and disgust’, provocative and lyrical utterances delivered by the killed and the dead. Ultimately, they become portrayals of Death.”