Eugeniusz Tkaczyszyn-Dycki

(1962) – poet, columnist.

Eugeniusz Tkaczyszyn-Dycki spent his childhood near Przemyśl (he comes from Wólka Krowicka near Lubaczów). He grew up on the border between two cultures and languages, Polish and Ukrainian, which influenced the shape of his work. He began writing in his youth. Following his degree in Polish studies at the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin, he began collaborating with the Kresy poetry group, and his columns were published in their quarterly until 2003. He made his poetry debut in 1989 in “Akcent” magazine and went on to publish poems, articles and columns in “Twórczość”, “Res Publica”, “Studium” and “Zeszyty Literackie”.

He is one of the most original and most popular Polish poets. He developed his own distinctive poetic language, the sources of which lie, according to critics, in Baroque poetry and Ukrainian folklore. He enjoys using repetition and leitmotifs (the poems in his books are numbered and arranged in cycles), and often publishes several versions side by side or addresses the same motif in multiple poems.

He is known for his use of neosemanticism: giving new meaning to existing words, especially archaic ones or those considered vulgar. From the thematic perspective, Tkaszyszyn-Dycki’s poetry explores and redefines the connections between death and eroticism, returning obsessively (especially in the early volumes) to the motifs of funerals, cemeteries and the Danse Macabre. He is also interested in phenomena that cause exclusion – schizophrenia, prostitution, homelessness, homosexuality. He has an extraordinary ability to present radical situations and topics in a masterful, admirable form. His usually sombre poems also contain elements of gallows humour.

In his volume of poetry titled “Przeszłość zagarnia swoje piękne dzieci” (The Past Claims its Beautiful Children), Tkaczyszyn-Dycki partly returns to his usual themes – the borderland areas, Wólka Krowicka, the figure of the mother and her illness. These poems can also be read as a multidimensional reflection on the essence of the story and the meaning of the narrative. At the same time, the world he constructs in his works reveals itself in constant returns to the sources of memory and scenes recorded in his poetic DNA.

Meanwhile, Tkaczyszyn-Dycki’s columns, printed in the quarterly “Kresy” and in the collection “Zaplecze” (Backstage), are of a more humorous nature. They often touch on the literature of previous centuries (especially from the Borderlands), books Tkaczyszyn-Dycki has found on his family’s bookshelves. Nineteenth-century pulp fiction, Enlightenment-era medical compendiums and Baroque devotional works are miraculously revived in Tkaczyszyn-Dycki’s reading, their fascinating and amusing elements highlighted, the characters brought back to life. In these texts, with their intriguing language and content, the discourse of non-indifference towards every kind of existence – whether fictional, remote, or treated as illustrative material – comes to the fore. As a result, despite their complete lack of attention to current topics, Tkaczyszyn-Dycki’s columns can successfully compete with even the most “engaged” trends in contemporary art.

Tkaczyszyn-Dycki has won many awards. These include the Józef Czechowicz Award (1991), the Barbara Sadowska Award for lifetime achievement in poetry (1994), and the Hubert Burda Preis Prize for young poets from Eastern Europe (2007). He was awarded the Gdynia Literary Award in 2006 for “Dzieje rodzin polskich” (A History of Polish Families), and in 2009, he received the same award for “Piosenka o zależnościach i uzależnieniach” (A Song about Dependencies and Addictions), for which he also received the Nike Literary Award. He was also nominated for the Nike award in 2012 for the volume “Imię i znamię” (Name and Birthmark), and in 2015 for “Kochanka Norwida” (Norwid’s Lover). Also in 2012, “Imię i znamię” was awarded the Silesius Poetry Award. In 2020, Tkaczyszyn-Dycki received the Silesius Poetry Award for lifetime achievement.