Jacek Gutorow

(b. 1970) – poet, translator, literary critic, essayist.

A graduate of English philology at the University of Opole, Gutorow has worked there as a post-doctoral researcher at the Institute of English Philology since 1995. His research focuses on theory of literature and literary translation, Anglophone poetry and contemporary Polish poetry. He writes poetry, essays, and translates such authors as Wallace Stevens, John Ashbery and Simon Armitage. Fascination with Stevens’s work, his rich metaphors and language has been the decisive influence on Gutorow’s own poetry.

Gutorow debuted as a poet in “NaGłos” in 1993, and as a literary critic – in that same magazine in 1994. Critics hold him in high regard as an author of precise lyrics, where he builds meaning mostly through intertextual references and quotations. Gutorow uses the high style, makes formal references to rules of classical poetry, but without excessive scrupulousness. The poet’s favourite image is the shadow cast by moonlight. The motifs of film projection, illusory continuity of movement and phantom presence are equally important.

Reviewing the year 2017 in poetry in the magazine Dwutygodnik.com, Maciej Woźniak mentioned Gutorow’s volume “Rok bez chmur” (A Year Without Clouds). The critic comments that Gutorow’s writing is “short and laconic (many quatrains), but with a certain pleasantly ironic airiness and a certain nicely intertextual reverence (kudos especially to Wallace Stevens). Maybe, in fact, that bit of “off-screen” tone is the most personal timbre here, one that most reveals the author, who is slightly obscured by everything he’s read. Gutorow has been combining classical attention to form with avant-garde courage to unsettle linguistic and cognitive structures for years; here he reaches the point where everything that we theoretically know about his poetry (and what the author theoretically knows in order to create it) subsides in the face of the natural power of lyrical observations and images”.

Gutorow’s bibliography also includes treatises. “Na kresach człowieka” (The Ends of Man) is academic in character and deals with the humanist aspects of deconstruction (especially in Jacques Derrida’s philosophy), such as negative ethics and theology, friendship and death. “Niepodległość głosu” (Independence of Voice) – a more essayistic book – is pioneering in that it uses deconstruction’s tools to describe contemporary Polish poetry.

Gutorow has been awarded, among others, a distinction at the Kazimiera Iłłakowiczówna Competition for the best poetry debut in 1998, the Culture Foundation Award and the Ludwik Fryde Award for his literary criticism (2003). In 2009, his volume “Inne tempo” (A Different Tempo) received a nomination for the Nike Literary Award, the Gdynia Literary Prize and the Cogito Public Media Award. He was nominated for the Silesius Poetry Award and the Konstanty Ildefons Gałczyński Orpheus Poetry Prize for his book A Year Without Clouds.