Szymon Bira

(b. 1987) – a poet, journalist, and the author of five books of poetry.

His work explores everyday language, seeking unexpected links between the simplest words; his poems are infused with a visionary quality.

He gained wider recognition in the literary scene with ‘3,5’ (3.5) and ‘1,1’ (1.1). As Jakub Skurtys wrote about the former in artPAPIER: “The line breaks come so frequently that Bira’s poems recall Różewicz’s model, but only (…) at a first glance. The creation of the subject is totally different, as is the range of vocabulary, there is no evident irony, though it is guided by a disquieting imagination, immersed in everyday life.”

In 1.1, Bira’s poetry is more narrative, his poems weave abstract-sounding dialogues stripped of their contexts, as if overheard, there are rhetorical questions in the second-person singular, and the author makes use of a linguistically inspired poetic of the absurd.

Bira was tied to the REJONY literary project. He has published his poems in journals and shop windows: the 8^th edition of Odra, artPAPIER, Cegła. Magazyn Materiałów Literackich, Dwutygodnik, FA-art, La Vie Magazyn, Kontent, Liberté!, Pismo, Przekrój, Wizje and Znak.

1.1 got him nominated for the Gdynia Literary Award in 2022. The same year, he received the Wrocław WARTO 2022 Award from Gazeta Wyborcza in the literature category. He took first place in the Word Sculpture 2^nd Polish Review of Poetry, under the patronage of Jacek Kaczmarski, in 2004.

Bira works with the National Forum of Music in Wrocław, where he organised almost twenty painting, sculpture and installation art exhibitions, including ones from the collections of Zachęta – National Gallery of Art, the Centre for Polish Sculpture in Orońsko, the Resonances of Art exhibition series, and solo exhibitions.

He comes from Bytom.