Ryszard Krynicki

(b. 1943) – a poet, translator and publisher.

He took Polish Studies at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. In the early 1970s, he worked on the editorial board of Student, a biweekly around which the New Wave generation largely formed. He also worked as an editor of Nurt, publishing there, in Poglądy, London’s Oficyna Poetów and Tygodnik Powszechny. In 1975, he became a signatory of Memoriał 59, protesting the proposed changes in the Polish constitution, which meant that in 1976–80 he was officially banned from publishing. He was a member of the opposition, tied to the underground community. In 1988, he and his wife Krystyna Krynicka founded a5 Publishers, mainly publishing contemporary Polish poetry.

He made his print debut with ‘Wczasowstąpienie’ (‘Timeaccession’), in 1966 in Pomorze. His earlier poems showed the reality of a nightmare, chaos, emptiness, nothingness and evoked a generation’s experience tied to the political events of March 1968 and December 1970. This oppressive vision in his works could be interpreted in political categories, and in ethical or metaphysical ones as well. A key element of Krynicki’s poetry is its focus on language, the observation of falsity that the totalitarian ideology carried out in it, with the aim of freeing us from the lies of Newspeak.

Over time, the author’s work began to change. In place of the dense, Baroque epics came ascetic forms of only a few lines. Krynicki’s poetry developed through the imperative for inner improvement, cleansing oneself from the world’s falsehoods, a liberation from nothingness – in a variety of ways. These miniatures were to be less works of art catching the reader off guard than a space for contemplation, a shared sense of the world. One trait of his work became filling in earlier versions of his poems, reprinting them in series of versions, sometimes quite numerous, following the premise that a poem is never closed, left to itself, it is a voice that is always being picked up, evolving, a stage in the road toward the greatest understanding, simplicity. His foremost gesture was falling silent, a Norwidian silence. Moreover, in ‘Haiku. Haiku mistrzów’ (The Haiku: Haikus of the Masters), Krynicki demonstrated the beauty of this minimalist and evocative form of poetry. Interestingly, he explains and interprets the works of the Japanese masters, giving this volume the appeal of an intercultural dialogue.

In 2014, a series of conversations with the poet was published: ‘Gdybym wiedział. Rozmowy z Ryszardem Krynickim’ (If I Knew: Conversations with Ryszard Krynicki).

Ryszard Krynicki has received many awards, including the Kościelski Foundation Award (1976). For ‘Kamień, szron’ (Stone, Frost, 2005) he received the Krakow Book of the Month Award and was nominated for the Nike Literary Award. In 2015, he took the Zbigniew Herbert International Literary Award, and in 2021, he took the Wrocław Silesius Poetry Award for lifetime achievement. For promoting German culture abroad, he received the F. Gundolf Award from the German Academy of Language and Poetry (2000). In 2006, he won the Minister of Culture and National Heritage Award.