At the limits of language: Poetics amidst Violence - Grzegorz Kwiatkowski (Poet & Musician)

Grzegorz Kwiatkowski’s work sits at the edges of language’s capabilities. His poetry book, crops (OHM editions, 2021), writes from the viewpoints of victims, survivors, perpetrators, and bystanders during the Shoah in Poland. In this event, Kwiatkowski will read from his work and engage in conversation with poet and historian Rachel Kaufman about his poetics and the capabilities and limitations of poetry to preserve violent histories.

About the Speaker: Grzegorz Kwiatkowski (b. 1984) is a Polish poet and musician, a member of the Polish psychedelic rock band Trupa Trupa, and is the author of several books of poetry focusing on history, remembrance, and ethics. Volumes of his poetry have appeared in English, French, German, Slovene and Greek, and translations of his poems have been published in British and US literary and cultural magazines such as Modern Poetry in Translation, World Literature Today, and New Poetry In Translation. He is a member of PEN America and the European poetry platform, Versopolis. Grzegorz Kwiatkowski co-hosts the workshop “Virus of Hate” at the University of Oxford. He is taking part in “The Surviving Memory in Postwar El Salvador” collaborative research initiative.

Live on Zoom (online event)

At the limits of language: Poetics amidst Violence
The 1939 Society Program in Holocaust Studies

Grzegorz Kwiatkowski (Poet & Musician) 
Moderator: Rachel Kaufman (UCLA)

Sponsored byThe UCLA Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies