Konrad Góra
trans. by Emilia Staniek
And We—Poets—
The languages were dying out, and we—poets—
were sublet; generation after
generation; for chicken feed,
to voice this in the survivors.
Officially, on 19th April 2018,
the northern rhinoceros also died out
and none of us, dear poets, was
asked to bang our heads against history.
Konrad Góra (born 1978) is a Polish poet and publisher. The presented poem comes from his volume entitled Dzień został w nocy Wiersze miłości i z nienawiści (The Day Stayed into the Night: Poems of Love and from Hate). He has received many awards, such as Warto in 2010 by Gazeta Wyborcza Magazine, and Wrocławska Nagroda Poetycka Silesius in 2020, and has been shortlisted for many other prestigious literary awards in Poland. Contact Konrad at papierwdole2012@gmail.com.
Emilia Staniek (she/her) is a Poland-based literary translator and aspiring scholar. Her translations have been published in Copernicus Center Press, the Bangalore Review, Magazyn Wizje, and Pismo. Magazyn opinii. She is a member of the Postcolonial Studies Association (UK) and Olga Tokarczuk Ex-Centre, an academic research center based in Wrocław. Her academic interests include such areas as race theory, black methodologies, and decolonial literature. She is currently working on a project regarding BIPOC poetry.