Slavic Department Lecture: "Whose Tongue Is it Anyway?: On Poets Translating Themselves and Others"

Translators who translate from their “first” language and into their acquired tongue have been marginalized—sometimes despite having won acclaim as original authors in English—but there seems to be a shift in how their work is perceived. Indeed, as more translators begin to engage with the practice, which not only helps to redefine the role of the translator but also our understanding of the literatures of the countries represented, this talk aims to build on the work of Elizabeth Klosty Beaujour, Adrian Wanner, and others in looking at several Polish and Polish-American poets for whom literary multilingualism and translation are two sides of the same coin. 

Among Piotr Florczyk’s more than two dozen books of criticism, poetry, essays, and translations are an essay collaboration with Ilya Kaminsky called Within, Without: On Two Cities (Seagull Books, 2026), Dialogue and Influence: Essays on Polish and American Poets (Academic Studies Press, 2025), Polish Literature as World Literature (co-edited with K.A. Wisniewski, Bloomsbury, 2023), and Swimming Pool, an Object Lessons title, which has just been translated into Polish. His honors include the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award from the American Academy of Poets as well as fellowships from the Wisława Szymborska Foundation and the Polish Book Institute. Florczyk is Associate Professor at UW-Seattle, where he teaches global literary studies. For more info about him and his work, please visit: www.piotrflorczyk.com