Night truck driver by Marcin Świetlicki

Translated from Polish by Elżbieta Wójcik-Leese

Long-listed for the 2021 PEN Poetry in Translation Award

Finalist for the 2020 Big Other Book Award for Translation

One of the most versatile and rebellious poets in Poland, Marcin Świetlicki takes us into streets, cafes, rooms, and conversations where — with his signature dark glasses — he ponders metaphysical questions in the minutiae of daily life. These are poems about life, forgiveness, communication, love, death, and time: in the slit of a mailbox, he sees “Not the light but / the galloping Now.” The poems have an urban edge and bite, and Świetlicki has recorded many of them as lyrics with his rock band. The collection, his first to be translated into English, culls work from twelve of his published volumes.

Born in Lublin in 1961, Świetlicki is a poet, crime writer and musician who has published thirteen poetry collections, and writes most of the lyrics for two rock bands he regularly performs with. He co-edited (with Marcin Baran and Marcin Sendecki) the poetry anthology Długie pożegnanie. Tribute to Raymond Chandler (The Long Goodbye. Tribute to Raymond Chandler). He has received several major awards, including the 1996 Kościelski Foundation Prize, the Silesius Wroclaw Poetic Award (2012) and the Lublin Poetical Stone Award (2014), for lifetime achievement.

Elżbieta Wójcik-Leese writes with/in English, Polish and Danish. Her translation of Nothing More, by Krystyna Miłobędzka, was shortlisted for the 2015 Popescu European Poetry Translation Prize. She translated Salt Monody, poems by Marzanna Kielar, and co-edited Carnivorous Boy Carnivorous Bird: Poetry from Poland, both published by Zephyr Press and available on this website. She co-curates “Transreading” courses on transnational and hybrid poetries for the Poetry School in London. Her multilingual Thirst in Three Directions is forthcoming in 2022. She lives in Copenhagen.