Zbigniew Machej

(b. 1958) – a poet, author of children’s poetry, translator of Czech and Slovak literature, critic, essayist and satirist.

He graduated in Polish philology and religious studies from the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. He worked as a teacher, independent reporter, cultural manager and diplomat (in 1991–96 and 2000–4, he was vice-director of the Polish Institute in Prague, in 2006–10, director of the Polish Institute in Bratislava, and then vice-director of the International Visegrad Fund in Bratislava).

As a poet, he made his debut in 1980 in Tygodnik Powszechny, and went on to publish over a dozen poetry collections. He placed his poetry, prose, translations and reviews in such journals as bruLion, Krasnogruda, Literatura na Świecie and Europa; he collaborated with the children’s magazine Czarodziejska Kura.

He is the only one among the ‘three most important debutants of the 1980s’ (according to Marian Stala; as confirmed by the Arka Award in 1988 for the most significant contribution to literature of recent years) who has maintained a high profile. He debuted as a fully-formed poet; though strongly influenced by Surrealism (Czech, not French), this has not muddied his view of the world, has not taken away precision in his intellectual and poetic ‘processing’ of reality. Machej can brilliantly use the link between a pun and a metaphor, which means that even his most serious poems are not overwrought, and the most humorous ones are not idle entertainment. With sophisticated freedom, he uses various types of metred verse (and also, interestingly enough, a form of short lyrical prose).

He is also a poet with lively responses to events and phenomena in public life – he could be inspired by an interview with Madonna, the killing of Versace or a film about Basquiat. An important role in his work is erotica, rendered in sumptuous baroque styling, full of metaphysical shadings, and yet evocative and sometimes astonishingly bold. We should also note his epic ‘Zapiski spod wieży Babel’ (Notes from Under the Tower of Babel, entirely made of ‘linguistic inventions’ of the poet’s son, Klaudiusz), and three large works: ‘Prolegomena do dziejów poezji polskiej w latach dziewięćdziesiątych XX wieku’ (Prolegomena to the History of Polish Poetry in the 1990s, an epic that reappraises many established opinions on the modern history of literature), ‘Cztery litanie społeczno-ekonomiczne’ of 2002 (Four Socio-Economic Litanies, a rare example of his political poetry) and ‘Kwestionariusz Karpowiczowski’ (The Karpowicz Survey, a tribute to one of the great Polish poets, which also poses questions about the value systems in Polish criticism). Machej’s work is so diverse that it is difficult to make general statements about it. He makes no ‘typical’ poems, in every poem he tries to surprise the reader – and usually he pulls it off.

In 2024, Machej’s first collection of essays was released, ‘Widokówki z niebytu’ (Postcards from Non-Existence). This is a personal testimony of reading Polish literature at a time when its significance is in decline. The author writes of important but forgotten works, recalls figures who are absent from today’s literary discourse. The essays sometimes become recollections, Machej draws from his own experiences or his friends’, such as Wisława Szymborska and Tadeusz Różewicz.

Machej’s poems have been translated into English, Bulgarian, French, German, Serbian and Slovak, and have been published in a host of foreign anthologies of new Polish poetry.

He has won the prize of the Krakow Arka quarterly (1988), the Stanisław Wyspiański Young Artist Award (1991), the Literatura na Świecie Award (2017) and the Konstanty Ildefons Gałczyński Orfeusz Poetry Award (2021). He has also been nominated for a Polityka Passport (2004, for Prolegomena), for the Wrocław Silesius Poetry Award (2008) and the Gdynia Literary Award (2008, for ‘Wiersze przeciwko opodatkowaniu poezji’ [Poems Against the Taxation of Poetry]).