Paweł Marcinkiewicz

Paweł Marcinkiewicz (born 1969 in Opole) is a Polish poet, translator, literary scholar, and assistant professor at the University of Opole. Notable work includes The Rhetoric of the City, a literary monograph at the intersection of urban studies, The Day He’s Gone (2014), a book of poetry spanning more than two decades of poems, and Colored Alphabets' Flutter (2012), a monograph about poet John Ashbery.

Poet Piotr Florczyk has translated some of his works into English, with his poetry appearing in several anthologies, including one in English (1993) and another in Swedish (2003). Marcinkiewicz is also the author of over 50 journal articles, with his research interest mostly focusing on American literature and translation theory. In 2020, he was awarded a fellowship at the University of Giessen.

Career Marcinkiewicz was born in Opole, Poland, in 1969. He made his debut as a poet in 1989 in the so-called underground "" with the poetry chapbook Zostaw noc, niech płynie (Leave the Night, Let It Flow On, 1988). Marcinkiewicz pursued a doctorate at the University of Silesia under Tadeusz Sławek. He received his PhD in American Literature in 2004. His doctoral dissertation, titled The City and Literature: A Comparative Study of Urbanism and Forms of Literary Expression from the Enlightenment to Postmodernity, explored a literary approach to urban studies. It was later modified and published as a monograph titled The Rhetoric of the City: Robinson Jeffers and A.R. Ammons (2009).

Selected works

Poetry Zostaw noc, niech płynie, Koło "Nowa Kultura," Ruch "Wolność i Pokój," Opole, 1989 Uciekaj Macinkiewic uciekaj, Staromiejski Dom Kultury, Warsaw, 1990 18 wierszy o tym, że ogień będzie różą, poetry chapbook, Okolice, no. 11 (1990/1991) Zawieram z tobą przymierze, Inter Esse, Kraków, 1993 Świat dla opornych, Znak, Kraków, 1997 Tivoli, Znak, Kraków, 2000 Real, self-published, Opole, 2004 Dni, WBPiCAK, Poznań, 2009 Majtki w górę, majtki w dół, Łódź, 2015

Criticism The Rhetoric of the City: Robinson Jeffers and A. R. Ammons, Peter Lang, Frankfurt, 2009 "Colored Alphabets' Flutter": John Ashbery and the Twentieth-Century American Avant-Gardes, University of Opole Press, 2012

Translations

Books W. S. Merwin, Imię powietrza. Wiersze wybrane ("The Name of Air: Selected Poems"), co-translated with Czesław Miłosz, Julia Hartwig, and Karolina Kopczyńska. Kraków: Znak, 2013. Seamus Heaney, Przejrzysta pogoda. Wiersze wybrane ("Clear Weather: Selected Poems"), co-translated with Stanisław Barańczak, Magda Heydel, and Adam Szostkiewicz. Kraków: Znak, 2009. Derek Walcott, Mapa Nowego Świata. Wiersze wybrane ("Map of the New World: Selected Poems"), co-translated with Stanisław Barańczak, Jerzy Jarniewicz, and others. Kraków: Znak, 2008. Richard Brautigan, Łowienie pstrągów w Ameryce (Trout Fishing in America), co-translated with Jacek Podsiadło. Poznań: Rebis, 2000. Robert Hass, Zbierając jeżyny. Wybór wierszy ("Picking Blackberries: Selected Poems"), co-translated with Czesław Miłosz, Tadeusz Sławek, and others. Kraków: Znak, 1997.

Journals "On the Poetry of W. S. Merwin," Odra 7–8/2013, Wrocław: Ośrodek Kultury i Sztuki, 2013, pp. 27–29. "Robert Hass: A Poet of Our Time," Odra 12/2011, Wrocław: Ośrodek Kultury i Sztuki, 2011, pp. 42–47. "Poets of L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E" [essay on the movement known as Language poetry], Odra 2/2011, Wrocław: Ośrodek Kultury i Sztuki, 2011, pp. 52–58. "Charles Bernstein and L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Poetry," Europa. Newsweek, 6 September 2010, p. 16. "The Ecstasy of Ekphrasis: A Short History of Ekphrasis and Its Significance in the Poetry of Mary Jo Bang," Odra 10/2010, Wrocław: Ośrodek Kultury i Sztuki, 2010, pp. 29–33. "They Lived Somewhere in America" [on John Ashbery’s Planisphere], Europa. Newsweek, 6 April 2010, p. 16. "Planisphere: On the Poetry of John Ashbery in the Context of Language Poetry," Odra 5/2010, Wrocław: Ośrodek Kultury i Sztuki, 2010, pp. 48–50. "On the Poetry of Ron Padgett," Odra 5/2009, Wrocław: Ośrodek Kultury i Sztuki, 2009, pp. 30–31. "A Sun-Flooded Void" [on the poetry of Seamus Heaney], Europa. Newsweek, 20 June 2009, p. 16. "Ugly Monsters Can Also Reach Heaven" [on the late work of W. H. Auden], Europa 182/2007, Warsaw: Axel Springer Polska, 2007, p. 16.