Łukasz Jarosz

(b. 1978) – a poet and musician.

For many years he has lived in Żurada, near Olkusz, where he works as a Polish teacher at an elementary school. He has won the Wisława Szymborska Poetry Award (2013), and has been nominated for the Nike Literary Award (2015, 2016), the K. I. Gałczyński Orfeusz Poetry Award (2012, 2013, 2016) and the Kazimierz Hoffman Kos Poetry Award (2024). He has taken awards in many Polish poetry competitions, including the Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński, Michał Kajka, Rafał Wojaczek and Rainer Maria Rilke.

He made his debut with Soma (2006), which took the first prize at the Witold Gombrowicz Young Authors Competition and first prize at the Polish Golden Mean of Poetry Literary Competition for debut of the year. His next volumes – ‘Biały tydzień’ (White Week, 2007), ‘Mimikra’ (Mimicry, 2010), ‘Wolny ogień’ (Free Fire, 2011), ‘Pełna krew’ (Full Blood, 2012), ‘Świat fizyczny’ (The Physical World, 2014), ‘Kardonia i Faber’ (Kardonia and Faber, 2015) and ‘Święto żywych’ (Day of the Living, 2016) – solidified his place as a leading poet of his generation. In 2011, he released the collection ‘Spoza. Wiersze z lat 1999–2010’ (From the Outside: Poems from 1999-2010), and in 2013 it had a second, expanded edition. In 2015, a trilingual (Polish–Italian–English) collection of his poems came out, La forza delle cose.

Jarosz’s poems have been translated into Croatian, Russian, Italian, English, Spanish, Swedish and German. They have been published in Harper’s Magazine, Tygodnik Powszechny, Gazeta Wyborcza, Twórczośc, Poezja Dzisiaj, Topos, Odra, Fraza, Arterie, Opcje, Tygiel Kultury, Kresy, Borussia, Pogranicze and Studium.

Jarosz is also a musician. He plays the drums, sings and writes lyrics. With Lesers Bend he has recorded ‘Szkło’ (Glass, 2003), ‘Akwarium’ (Aquarium, 2004), Gea (2005), Lesers Bend (2008), EP (2009) and ‘Ludzie Wędrowni’ (Wandering People, 2014). With Chaotic Splutter he released ‘Matryca’ (Matrix, 2010), and with Mgłowce, ‘Lalka dla Boga’ (A Doll for God, 2011), ‘Podróżnicy’ (Travellers, 2011) and ‘Sto tysięcy uderzeń’ (A Hundred Thousand Strikes, 2011). In 2022, he and Maciej Stanecki released ‘Dzień Liczb Pi’ (Pi Day), on which he reads his poems with electronic soundtracks. He has also played with Zziajani Porywacze Makowców and Katil Ferman.

Jarosz’s poetry addresses dilemmas around the possibility of knowing oneself through writing. He does not treat poetry as a mission, but as a way of recording experiences and everyday existence. As he confesses, he writes about his own life and that of those around him, sometimes from the past, but with no sense of a calling. In his poems, people live in harmony with nature, sensitively observing the world and themselves in it. For Jarosz, writing is a form of memory, not a condition for existence – it more accompanies life than gives it an aim.

Jarosz often mentions other writers in his work, sometimes outright, as in ‘Różewicz’ and ‘Stachura’, elsewhere in an allusive way, through titles and quotes, as in ‘Napój cienisty’ (‘Thorny Drink’), alluding to Leśmian. In Jarosz’s poetry we find references to the work of such authors as Stanisław Grochowiak, Czesław Miłosz, Rafał Wojaczek and Tadeusz Gajcy.

A poet and musician, Łukasz Jarosz remains an artist on the sidelines, far from the cities. His poetry has powerful images of nature, and the conviction that passion is an irreplaceable part of the creative process.