Anna Piwkowska Poland

Anna Piwkowska, born in 1963, is a poet, essayist and critic who studied Polish philology at Warsaw University. She has published seven volumes of poetry: Szkicownik (Sketchpad, 1989), Cień na ścianie (Shadow on the Wall, 1990), Wiersze i sonety (Poems and Sonnets, 1992), Skaza (Flaw, 1996), Tylko trzy drogi (Only Three Roads, 2000), PO (2002), and a selection, Niebieski sweter (Blue Sweater, 2004). In 2003 her book about the Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, Achmatowa czyli kobieta (Akhmatova Alias Woman), appeared and in 2007 Ślad łyżwy (Skate Tracks), based on true stories from the life of Austrian poet Georg Trakl, was published.

Her poems have appeared in many leading Polish literary journals and have been translated into Russian, German and Slovene. She has also written song lyrics, the words for the Prologue to an eighteenth-century opera by Maciej Kamieński, Nędza uszczęśliwiona (Misery Made Happy), and poetry for Barbara Sass's film Jak narkotyk (Like a Narcotic, 1999).

She is an expert on the Russian Acmeist poets, especially Anna Akhmatova, in whose footsteps she has travelled in Russia and Ukraine to research her book. She has won several literary prizes including the Georg Trakl Award (1995), a Kościelski Foundation Distinction (2002) and the Warsaw Literary Premiere Award (2003).

(2009)