Urszula Zajączkowska

(b. 1978) – poet, essayist, video artist, creator of music and opera librettos, curator of literary events, botanist and nature educator.

She has published the poetry books “Atomy” (Atoms, 2014), “minimum” (2017) and “Piach” (Sand, 2020), as well as the essay collection “Patyki, badyle” (Sticks, Stalks, 2019). Her debut volume Atoms received a distinction at the Golden Mean of Poetry National Literary Competition (2015) and a nomination for the Silesius Poetry Award. The book minimum received the prestigious Kościelski Award (2017), and nominations for the Silesius Poetry Award and the Konstanty Ildefons Gałczyński Orpheus Poetry Prize (both in 2018). The collection Sticks, Stalks received the Gdynia Literary Prize (2020) in the essay category. That book was also nominated for the Polityka’s Passport Award (2019), the Witold Gombrowicz Literary Award (2020) and the Conrad Award (2020). The volume Sand earned her a nomination for the Wisława Szymborska Award (2021) and her second one for the Konstanty Ildefons Gałczyński Orpheus Poetry Prize (2021).

The author is a botanist, graduated from the Faculty of Forestry at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences, where – as a professor of that university – she now heads the Department of Forest Botany. Her scientific research focuses on the growth, anatomy, aerodynamics and biomechanics of plants. For her, research constitutes vital material for literary and creative work. In 2015, along with a group of visual artists, she created the video project Cambium Killers. In 2016 she finalised a two-year art project: the film Metamorphosis of Plants, inspired by Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s short scientific treatise (1790) and poem (1798) of the same title. The film was awarded and the international SCINEMA Science Film Festival in Australia in the Best Experimental/Animation category. The poet is also the initiator and co-organiser of the “Znaczenia” (Meanings) Literary Festival in Wołomin, and chapter member of the Meanings Literary Prize, awarded to “a book which bravely confronts the present day, but also invites a contemplation of the future”, written in any genre. She has a column in the culture journal “Dwutygodnik”. Urszula Zajączkowska’s poems have been translated into English and Spanish, and included in many anthologies.