Aldona Kopkiewicz

(b. 1984) – a poet, prose writer and essayist.

She has published the poetry books “sierpień” (august), “Szczodra” (Generous), “Na próbę” (Trial Period), “Przy sobie” (On Me) and the short story collection “Panna Denna i inne zmyślenia” (Miss Crummy and Other Confabulations).

In 2019 she defended her doctoral thesis in literary studies at the Jagiellonian University. She has published scholarly articles and criticism in “Dwutygodnik”, “Ruch Literacki”, “Przestrzenie Teorii” and “Czas Literatury”. For “Ha!art”, “Rita Baum” or “Twórczość” she has written essays and fables at the intersection of philosophy and fantasy. She received the “Młoda Polska” (Young Poland) Scholarship awarded by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage in 2020. Her debut volume august, a record of accompanying her father as he passes away, received the Silesius Poetry Award (2016). Professor Tadeusz Sławek called august “a lyrical meditation on evanescence”. In 2019 Kopkiewicz won the Kościelski Award for the poetry volume Generous, which was also nominated for the Silesius Poetry Award in the Book of the Year category.

In her next work, Trial Period (2020), Kopkiewicz weaves subtle, ambiguous tales about complicated relationships with others, about yearning, searching for friendly spaces and a desire for solitude. On Me (2022), in turn, is a poetry collection in which the poems become not only tools, but also subjects of the story. In 2024 Kopkiewicz published a collection of writing entitled Miss Crummy and Other Confabulations – as she herself says, the texts are not really short stories, but “strange tales or surreal prose”.

Kopkiewicz is also the author of audio plays, dramatic works and exhibition publications: “Z mojego okna widać wszystkie kopce” (I Can See Every Mound from My Window, 2016) at Bunkier Sztuki in Kraków, “Ministerstwo Spraw Wewnętrznych. Intymność jako tekst” (Internal Affairs. Intimacy as Text, 2017) and “Farba znaczy krew” (Paint Means Blood, 2019) at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw.