'My Century / Mój wiek' at the Miłosz Festival 2016: Krakow

June Friday 10th 2016 http://miloszfestival.pl/en/

An innovative poetic performance responding and retelling the extraordinary interview and memoir of Aleksandr Wat, conducted by Czesław Miłosz, for the 2016 Miłosz Festival supported and commissioned by UNESCO City of Literature: Krakow, featuring Polish and British poets and text artists in collaboration.

In My Century the great Polish poet Aleksander Wat provides a spellbinding account of life in Eastern Europe in the midst of the terrible twentieth century, an account at the end of his extraordinary life that couldn't have found such iconoclastic form without it being led and coaxed by his friend Czesław Miłosz. A document of history, but also a profound collaboration.

For the 2016 Miłosz Festival, poet and artist SJ Fowler, founder of the Enemies Project, which pioneers collaborative poetry practise across the world, leads a group of four contemporary avant-garde poets in making a brand new work, commissioned for the occasion. Featuring Weronika Lewandowska, Tom Jenks, Fowler & others, this will be a reforming of Wat's story and myths - a piece of experimental literature, faithful to its source in it's experimentation.

Bios:

Weronika M. Lewandowska - poet, performer, VJs scene animator, curator of independent events of new media art (BYOB, Share Warsaw). 
Strongly linked to the international spoken word scene, she has presented her melodic and Slavic poems at the most important spoken word events in Poland and abroad: ORDSPRAK Uppsala International Poetry Festival, Spoke'N'Word on Tour in Paris, Kiev, London and Beijing, Reims Slam d'Europe, European Slam Meeting Berlin 2009, Connect in Dusseldorf, to name but a few. She cooperates with audiovisual project plan.kton, experiments with interdisciplinary and performative forms of poetry.

SJ Fowler is a poet, artist, curator & vanguardist. He works in the modernist and avant garde traditions, across poetry, fiction, theatre, sonic art, visual art, installation and performance. He has published multiple collections of poetry and been commissioned by Tate Modern, the British Council, Tate Britain, Highlight Arts, Mercy, Penned in the Margins, the London Sinfonietta and he is currently in residence at Wellcome Collection with Hubbub group. He has been translated into 14 languages and performed at venues across the world, visiting festivals and events in Mexico, Argentina, Iraq, France, Germany, Serbia, Croatia, Iceland, Italy and more. He is the poetry editor of 3am magazine, teaches at Kingston University, Tate Modern and the Poetry School, and is the curator of the Enemies project. www.stevenjfowler.com

Tom Jenks' most recent book is Spruce (Blart Books). An Anatomy of Melancholy is forthcoming on Sad Press. He co-organises the Other Room reading series in Manchester and administers the avant objects imprint zimZalla. More at http://zshboo.org