As a poetic community, we are building an ark with verses of our poetry.
We believe that words can save — not only moments, memories, emotions, heritage or wisdom. In an environmental context, poetry can also be “a lifeboat” for endangered species and perishing ecosystems. It is a way to show and explore the diversity of the environment, where humans are only one of almost nine million species on Earth. A British ecologist, Norman Myers puts it in the following words: "Our ignorance is so great that we are not aware of it... we know almost nothing about earth's ecosystem... and we have only just begun to understand the nature of planetary life as a whole” (What ails the globe?, 1994. Top ecologist Norman Myers offers his list of the Earth’s top 10 environmental problems. „Earth Times”. San Diego, Apr’94. sdearthtimes.com/et0494/et0494s0.html).
And now, facing the climate crisis, poetry is becoming increasingly resonant, giving the unique opportunity to build awareness and sensitize people to global environmental problems from a very individual (personal or even intimate) perspective.
That is why we have composed a set of poems “Verses for the Ark”. Through our words we want to express engagement and environmental responsibility — which we could call “Rescue Poetry”. However, unlike the biblical Noah - not having his divine inspiration and granted power - we operate only (or as much as) with words. Hence our ark is ephemeral, heterogeneous and wobbly. But at the same time we believe that by noticing, subjectively capturing and describing specific, even individual phenomena and species in a poem, we use a saving function of words.
Poets and works of “Verses for the Ark”:
Anna Borkowska: “wildman”, “greenery board”, “looking out the window”
Cezary Lewanowicz: “Trembling”, “The wagon”
Monika Bistuła: “Pesticides (yaz)”, “collecting insects and snails”
Agata Kordecka: nr 11. & 42. from long poem “only what moves”, “colonization”
Wikta Kłosińska: “A Whisperer Girl ”, “mindfulness”, “town of delphi”
Paulina Janssen: “deadly nightshade”, “a daughter in the forest surpassing echo”
This metaphoric ark has also gained the physical form of paper boats with poems. Everyone can now print the chosen poem from the attached file and fold it into a paper boat.
The project is part of the subtheme The Ecology of Language - Poetry and Environmental Action.
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Wspólnota Snów Równoległych (Community of Parallel Dreams)
The poetic collective “Wspólnota Snów Równoległych” (“Community of Parallel Dreams") was established in 2022 as an informal, completely grassroots initiative in response to the need to share poetry. The joy of mutual inspiration unites us in writing.
We have been actively operating since October 2022, meeting online to work on texts and learn from each other. Over the last two years, the collective has held circa 30 meetings online. We write poems separately, but together we create a space for reading and listening to poetry, to discuss, share and spread our poems. The geographical dispersion of community members brings multinational and multicultural energy. Our poetic tropes are various, each of us looks for something of her/his own in words. However, we believe this diversity and confrontation with different poetics and means of expression is enriching, refreshing and new.
The collective also publishes its works, translations and essays, and its members participate in literature festivals, competitions and artistic projects. By delivering individual creativity, we co-create joint actions, exploring topics that are important to us.
Our previous projects:
MANIFESTO (May 2023)
Declaration of collective’s poetic vision, ideas and principles.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kOE_CKIW8DhG6opeuQPl3GS7M229KHCg/view?usp=drive_link
PRINT YOURSELF A POEM. PRINT YOURSELF A DREAM (November 2023)
Poetic happening as an element of the exhibition "Believe in Ghost". During the opening of the exhibition, we took part in a real distribution of dreams! The collective prepared a delicious menu with spiritological poems selected especially for this occasion. We enjoyed exquisite epitaphs (and more!) to the hypnotizing sound of a double bass. Simultaneously, the poems were printed live and could be taken home.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aEDRJbVBoxdgHSQiDKskC6KLROq7pJo-/view?usp=drive_link
ESTUARIUM - ESTUARY (April 2024)
The first paper chapbook of the collective (format A5+, notebook binding, 52 pages, 100 numbered copies).
It reflects the need and inevitability of artistic expression—for emotions, thoughts, words, and creativity. The river reference emphasizes the openness to different threads, which nevertheless meet in a common stream.
The whole notebook is divided into four parts. The parts "Springs" and "Accumulations" are a clasp that connects everything that will happen along the course of the river. The part "Maps" contains searching poems - these are searches for new meanings, discovering words, language experiments and journeys to specific places or imaginary spaces. The part "Mirrors" refers to the water surface, which is the boundary between what is visible, what is reflected in it, and what is hidden under the surface.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ijRBleD0dZBiFAa80rQqvCC5L-Am7Nfd/view?usp=drive_link
NARODZEŃSTWO - BIRTHHOOD (June — November 2024)
Participation in the exhibition "I Will Never Give Birth to My Mother" with the poetic project “Narodzeństwo”, tracing the process of becoming both a mother-creator and a daughter-creation.
We decided to talk about motherhood and daughterhood through close and distant associations, where beyond the human dimension, there appears a supernatural dimension. We wanted to speak in poems about creators and those created through a network of relationships - interpersonal, inter-born, inter-species, (im)material.
The set of poems “Narodzeństwo” has four parts: “Genes”, “Mothers and Grandmothers”, “Daughters” and “What Comes After Us”. We start with fragments of the genetic code, determinants in the creation process. Then we turn to the ancestors – their experiences recorded in our fingerprints, bodies and view of the present. In the third part, we put in the centre the figure of the mother in the creative process, in the cyclical becoming. The anthology ends with the fourth part, where we try to outline the future of the creators and the created.
In November 2024 we published the second paper chapbook of the collective, consisting of poems about “birthhood”.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1a0XSz87SQLxxKX-bIQZ15ryxOi_L4Q5j/view?usp=drive_link
Members of the collective:
Teodor Ażder, Aleksandra Bartelska, Monika Bistuła, Anna Borkowska, Paulina Janssen, Wikta Kłosińska, Agata Kordecka, Cezary Lewanowicz, Piotr Okniński
IG: @wspolnota_snow_rownoleglych
