Filip Matwiejczuk

(b. 1996) – a poet, literary critic, essayist, editor and dramaturg.

Connected to the Polish Stoner scene and KONTENT foundation, and as an editor tied to Papier w Dole magazine and Ha!art publishers. His books work through a range of historical traditions, including the first avant-garde, high modernism and classicism. He defines his poetic as maximalist, having foregone refining his texts in favour of extended impromptu phrases. His books are full of coarse humour, though he eschews irony and often flirts with being fully direct. Matwiejczuk has published poems, epics, essays and critical articles in Wizje, Strona Czynna, Mały Format, KONTENT, Notatnik Literacki, Dwutygodnik, Odra, Twórczość, Nowy Napis, Ha!art and Elewator. He lives in Warsaw.

He debuted in 2020 with a poetry volume, ‘Różaglon’ (Roseweed), for which he was singled out by the Polish Kazimiera Iłłakiewiczówna Award and the Polish Golden Mean of Poetry Literary Competition (third place); for the book’s design he received the UNESCO Krakow City of Literature Award. Roseweed is a book of wide-ranging literary and philosophical contexts, filled with photographs and diagrams or drawings by the author.

Three years later, he published a second volume, ‘Pasożyt’ (Parasite), which was, according to the author’s statement, the second part of trilogy about ascertaining the real value of a thousand zloty. The book stands out for its poetics, but also the metatextual play of its mottos.

In 2024, his poems were published in the Book Institute catalogue, New Books from Poland. Matwiejczuk’s pieces were translated into Ukrainian, Russian, English and Swedish. He was part of the noise duo Nudy, and is presently in a band called Osoby Pracownicze. He was singled out in the Tymoteusz Karpowicz Competition for literary review (2022). In Dialog he published a drama, ‘Pleśń i keczup. Poemat dramatyczny w pięciu aktach’ (Mould and Ketchup: A Dramatic Epic in Five Acts).

Matwiejczuk and Łukasz Żurek also wrote Shmrodek. Truly Eastern European Experience in the Shadow of the Class Trauma and Story of the Struggle for the Class Advancement, which took the main prize at the first edition of the Timothy Dexter Competition for Worst Book, organised by Oficyna Dar Dobryszyc.

Filip Matwiejczuk’s writing has appeared in such publications as ‘Uchylone wnętrze. Literacka opowieść o Kolekcji Bunkra Sztuki’ (Tilted Interiors: A Literary Tale of the Bunkier Sztuki Collection, 2025) and ‘Pośrodku dzikiego boiska. Antologia wierszy poetek i poetów Złotego Środka 2005–2024’ (Inside a Wild Field: An Anthology of Poets of the Golden Mean, 2005–24, 2024).