The poet Urszula Kozioł was the winner of the Nike Literary Award 2024 for the volume “Raptularz” – it was announced on Sunday evening during the award ceremony at the Warsaw University Library. These are poems about passing away, the loss of a loved one and old age.
“The poet is fully aware that language is not a medium of objective and hard judgments. It is rather a vehicle for questionable and accidental meanings,” said Krzysztof Siwczyk, chairman of the jury of the “Nike” Literary Award, in his laudation. “Place and time, which are important elements of literary meditation in the book we awarded this year, return more than they actually exist, appearing in the reading as if from a distance. (…) A place that is not there and time that is passing turn out to be an empty house and a wake-up call in a dark hour. Existential tension bursts the lines, the text does not fit in with the world, nothing here fits into aesthetic arrangements, nothing wants to please.
The chairman of the jury recalled one of the most important characters of “Raptularz” – the poet’s beloved husband, Germanist and translator Feliks Przybylak, who died in 2010, to whom Urszula Kozioł dedicated the volume “Klangor”. “I remember one day in Wrocław perfectly. Many years ago, from a distance, I noticed a couple tenderly embracing each other. It was an inseparable couple, a paradigmatic and emblematic pair of people immersed in each other and in literature. She, about whom I wrote elsewhere ‘Mrs. Razor’, and he, an excellent translator of, among others, Paul Celan. I was a little afraid of them. They radiated the light of connection and love that one would like to experience. In the book we awarded, he is persistently recalled, extracted from his ‘non-being’ while the memory is still alive,” said Siwczyk.
Urszula Kozioł was born in 1931 in Rakówka near Biłgoraj, in the Lublin region. My parents were teachers whose lives were filled with social work. Urszula Kozioł passed her high school final exams in Zamość in 1950. She worked as a teacher, among others. in Bystrzyca Kłodzka and Wrocław. She headed the literary department of “Poglądy”, she was the editor of the Wrocław monthly “Odra” and she has been associated with this magazine for years, she served as the director of the Wrocław Cultural Center.
She made her debut as a poet in 1954 in the press. He also wrote dramas, plays for children, columns and radio plays. She published, among others, “Gumowe klocki” (Polish Writers’ Union, Wrocław 1957), “In the rhythm of roots” (Ossolineum, 1963), “In the rhythm of the sun”, (1974), “Żalnik”, (1989), “Supliki”, (2005), “Przelotem” (2007), “Horrendum” (2010), “Klangor” (2014), “Ucieczki” (2016). Volumes of her poems were published in Poland primarily by Wydawnictwo Literackie, and the latest book of poetry “Raptularz” was published last year year by the National Publishing Institute.
The writer is the winner of many awards, including the Kościelski, Minister of Culture, City of Wrocław, awards named after Stanisław Piętak, Wrocław Silesius Poetry Award. She was also awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Wrocław. She is an Honorary Citizen of Wrocław and was awarded the Golden Badge of Honor of Wrocław.
The award-winning volume – “Raptularz” – has, as the publisher writes, something of a notebook, a notebook, a sketchbook, where not only new poems are placed, but also fragments of some poems from years ago. The volume begins with a fragment of the poem “Apocalypse pre-Świętojańska” from the volume “W rhythmiem poznaj” (1963), and ends with the author’s note: “This is a volume about love and death. About old age.” The last poem of the volume is “The Last Letter” with the phrase “It’s time to say / adieu / to the world / I’m leaving / since I’ve even left / from myself.”
READ ALSO Poet Urszula Kozioł awarded the Gold Medal “Gloria Artis for Merit to Culture”
Since the death of her beloved, “As the summer goes by / sadness grows inside me” – writes the poet, who stopped leaving the house, “because if someone asked / about you / how could I say / that you are gone” (“In the Eyes of the World”). The condition she finds herself in is described by the metaphor of a house “where no one lives / a house with a broken window / covered with any boards” (“Where’s My Home”).
Urszula Kozioł won the Nike Literary Award for the first time, but it was not her first nomination for this award. She was nominated in 2006 for the book “Supliki”, in 2008 – for the volume “Przelotem”, in 2015 – for “Klangor”, and in 2017 – for “Ucieczki”.
“We share what creates good,” said Urszula Kozioł when receiving the Golden Pen. “Sometimes you need to think and be quiet,” she added.
The winner of the Nike Literary Award 2024 received PLN 100,000. PLN and a statuette designed by Gustaw Zemła.
The organizers of the award are “Gazeta Wyborcza” and the Nike Literary Award Foundation, and the founder is the Agora Foundation. (PAP)
Author: Agata Szwedowicz
aszw/dki/
