Józef Baran

(b. 1947) – poet, journalist, columnist, memoirist, essayist.

Józef Baran worked as a journalist in the weekly “Wieści”, and later in “Dziennik Polski”, where he ran, among others, the poetry column. He published his first work in 1968 in “Tygodnik Kulturalny”. His debut poetry volume “Nasze najszczersze rozmowy” (Our Sincerest Conversations) was published in 1974 by Wydawnictwo Literackie. Since then, he has published in periodicals including “Tygodnik Powszechny”, “Kultura”, “Twórczość”, New York’s “Przegląd Polski”, “Migotania” and “Topos”.

The most important motifs in Józef Baran’s poems include: nature, humanity, love, evanescence. His is an empathetic poetry, a poetry of open spaces, reflecting upon the natural order of the world and the changing seasons. The poet’s home village, Borzęcin, plays a vital part in his oeuvre; it is the source of his axiological system, gradually enriched with elements belonging to the cultural world. Józef Baran remains a fully independent poet, immune to trends, consciously involved in intertextual games in which he alludes to masterpieces of Polish and global literature, to works of music and art.

Critics who wrote about his work include Artur Sandauer, Jerzy Kwiatkowski, Stanisław Stabro, Julian Kornhauser, Elżbieta Mikoś and Marek Karwala. Since 1989 Baran’s poems have been part of Polish primary and secondary school programme.

Baran is a longstanding member of the Polish Writers Association. His poems have inspired many singers and composers, such as Stare Dobre Małżeństwo, Pod Budą, Elżbieta Adamiak, Hanna Banaszak, Ola Mauer, Beata Paluch and Andrzej Zarycki. The key films about his work include the TV programme “Sztuka – Wieczność – Dom” (Art – Eternity – Home) by Piotr Słowikowski, starring Anna Dymna and Jerzy Trela (TVP 2, TV Polonia, 1998) and the 2017 documentary “Poeta pisze sobą” (The Poet Writes with Himself) produced by the Kraków Library in collaboration with TVP 3 Kraków, written and directed by Maria Guza.

In 2000 Józef Baran took part in a summit between three Polish poets (with Bogusław Żurakowski and Dariusz Tomasz Lebioda) and American ones (Stanley Kunitz, Anatol Stern, Henry Taylor) at the United Nations in New York. In October 2001 he represented Polish poetry at the XXI World Congress of Poets in Sydney, which featured around 150 writers from Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, China, India, Ireland, Israel, Poland, South Korea, Spain, Taiwan, Turkey and USA. In 2010 he toured Brazilian universities with readings of his essays and poetry translated into Portuguese and Spanish. In 1991 he received a scholarship at Svenska Instituet in Stockholm, and a year later – a grant for a stay in Sweden from the Foundation for Independent Polish Science and Culture in Paris. He also received a scholarship from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage twice (in 2007 and 2012).

Józef Baran’s poetry has been published in anthologies abroad, including in Czech Republic, Israel, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia and the US, and individual poems have been translated into twenty languages, such as English, German, Hebrew, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Arabic and all the Slavic languages.

He has received many awards and distinctions, including: the 1975 Andrzej Bursa Award (for his debut volume), the Stanisław Piętak Award (for “Dopóki jeszcze” – As Long As, 1977), the Kościelski Award (for the volume “W błysku zapałki”, published in English as In a Flash, 1980), the Literature Fund Award (for the volume “Pędy i pęta” – Gallops and Tethers, 1984), a distinction from the Pen West Club in Los Angeles (for the bilingual volume W błysku zapałki / In a Flash, 2001), the Władysław Orkan Award (2002). In 2016 he was nominated for the Konstanty Ildefons Gałczyński Orpheus Poetry Prize for the volume “Szczęście w czapce niewidce i 99 nowych wierszy” (Happiness in the Cap of Invisibility and 99 New Poems). In 2013 his manuscripts became part of the collection at the National Library of Poland. In 2015 he received the silver Gloria Artis Medal for Merit to Culture.