When translators Anna Blasiak and Bohdan Piasecki introduce this collection of poems by Aneta Kaminska, they describe her as ‘a seasoned linguist who plays never-ending language games (based on the sounds, rhyme, rhythm, alliteration and beyond)’. These qualities make her particularly attractive to her translators, because her poems ‘make it easy to do away with tired romantic metaphors of fidelity and loss in translation’ and instead the English translations ‘function as a record of ‘a negotiation between two of many possible readings, rather than the results of a doomed quest for something identical to a perfect original.’ (Blasiak and Piasecki).

The collection falls roughly into four parts. The poems are presented in chronological order and all the translations are prefaced by notes. The opening section contains a series of five poems where the common thread is sensuality. In the first poem jesil nie kawa to (if not coffee then) the Polish original and the English translation have expressions in common. Both use ‘now or never’ and ‘all or nothing’ and this makes it easier to follow Kaminska’s word games, as the poem’s sensual description of brewing and drinking coffee builds to an urgent conclusion..

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The poems that follow continue to challenge language and conventional views of women’s bodies and their experiences. luka (gap), for instance, follows a young girl’s observations about sexual difference..

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The flow of poems and life are interrupted in 2020 by the Covid pandemic and koronauczycielka (coronateacher), reflects the isolation and restriction of this time and our widespread dependence on technology..

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Czernovitz—Charmovitz showcases Aneta Kaminska’s versatility. Her ability to not only play with language, but also bend it to her will and needs. Her capacity for invention and subversion is always present. It’s there when she’s whispering intimacies, when she’s being assertive and hollering, when she’s sharing her dreams of landscape and when she’s writing of unimaginable horrors. Aneta Kaminska is a poet who is always alive to the challenges presented by these different tasks and she brings to them the same passion and commitment she brings to her translation.