Wioletta Greg is a poet, writer, editor and translator. Born in southern Poland, she moved to the UK in 2006 and currently resides in the town of Ryde on the Isle of Wight. Wioletta has published several volumes of poetry in Poland, Canada and the UK, including Wyobraznia kontrolowana (Controlled Imagination, 1988); Parantele (Kinships, 2003); Orinoko (2008); Inne obroty (Alternate Turns, 2010); the bilingual Pamiec Smieny/Smena’s Memory (2011); the collection of short prose forms Notatnik z wyspy (Notes from an Island, 2011) and a debut novel, Guguly (2014) in which she revisits the experience of growing up in communist Poland. Her poems have appeared in numerous literary journals and she has won several literary prizes, including the Tyska Zima Poetycka.
Judges’ Citation
These poems, as translated from Polish into English by Marek Kazmierski, retain the force of first experience and, equally, a collection of history’s remains.
These poems, as translated from Polish into English by Marek Kazmierski, retain the force of first experience and, equally, a collection of history’s remains. Greg’s thoughts include the catastrophe of the 20th century whose marks still wobble before her eyes, and into the experience of living in post-Communist Poland. This stunning collection shows us (mostly through the eyes and memories of childhood) a world of objects transported across years. ‘Tossing satin bulbs into wicker baskets,’ the child poet is at ease with the earth and the hardy objects made from it. Greg grants us the privilege of seeing what she saw before she saw more.