BEEN AND GONE

Julian Kornhauser
Translated by Piotr Florczyk

Born in Gliwice in 1946, Julian Kornhauser is one of the most acclaimed figures of Polish poetry writing today, while also being a critic, translator and professor of South-Slavic literatures at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków.  A major figure of the New Wave movement of the 1970s, he has published eight books since the mid-1990s, including three collections of poetry, Kamyk i cień (1996), Było minęło (2001), and Origami (2007), in which a shift from collective preoccupations to a more personal and iconographic tone can be seen.  Fittingly, this debut collection of his work in English, which draws exclusively on those three recent volumes and presents the poems in a new arrangement, should not be viewed as aiming to recap the poet’s voluminous and diverse body of work.  It was only during the final stages of editing, however, that it became clear that this volume does in fact touch upon most, if not all, of Kornhauser’s major subject matters, formal strategies, and thematic concerns, giving American readers the opportunity to discover one of Poland’s most important contemporary writers in Piotr Florczyk’s splendid translations.

About the Author, Piotr Florczyk

Originally from Kraków, Poland, Piotr Florczyk has work published or forthcoming in Slate, Boston Review, New Orleans Review, The Southern Review, West Branch, The Louisville Review, World Literature Today, Chelsea, and Poetry International. 

A recipient of the 2007 Anna Akhmatova Fellowship for Younger Translators and a 2008 Individual Artist Grant from the Delaware Arts Council, Florczyk earned his MFA from San Diego State University, and currently teaches in Delaware and Maryland. 

Reviews

"I am grateful to Piotr Florczyk for the precision with which he has rendered Julian Kornhauser's poignant, pared down poems that take place in the narrow space between the word "been" and the word "gone" ("but so much happened there").  These ruthless short lyrics cut experience back to the bone." - Edward Hirsch

"Julian Kornhauser writes of "the miracle of the pillow with four corners," a button "deprived of its thread," a "piece of glass" flecked with blood -- the luminous things of the world that reflect with haunting precision our precarious relationship to the "expenses and losses" of beauty. Piotr Florczyk introduces American readers to one of Poland's most significant contemporary poets in translations that bring alive Kornhauser's lines with a thrilling immediacy." - Michael Collier