Poetry Travels with Anna Blasiak and Lisa Kalloo

I am a poet. And I travel. Well, perhaps less so right now, but hopefully this is just temporary … My poetry travels too – between Polish and English (sometimes it gets translated, at other times it is written in one or both of my main languages). And also – following in the footsteps of my languages – it travels between cultural contexts, mentalities, histories. All poetry does that.

But there is more.

My recent book Café by Wren’s St James-in-the-Fields, Lunchtime (Holland House Books, 2020) is a collaboration with my partner, the photographer Lisa Kalloo. She created another layer, her visual poetry, in response to my written poetry.

So now, once a month starting from July 2020, I will choose a poem translated into English from a different language. And it will always be accompanied by a photograph created by Lisa. Because poetry travels, and not just between places and languages, but also between art forms. And sometimes magical things happen on those travels…

Do watch this space, always on the last Wednesday of the month.

Anna Blasiak

Anna Blasiak is an art historian, poet and translator. She has translated over 40 books from English into Polish and, mainly as Anna Hyde, Polish into English. She is a co-translator (with Marta Dziurosz) of Renia’s Diary by Renia Spiegel. Her bilingual poetry book, Café by Wren’s St James-in-the-Fields, Lunchtime, is out from Holland House Books. annablasiak.com.

Lisa Kalloo studied law. Moved away from it. Coming from a British Indo-Caribbean background, she explores as many cultures as possible. Born in London. Raised in Basingstoke. Studied in Wolverhampton. Lives in Ramsgate. She takes a mindful approach to life focusing on elements of stillness, compassion and empathy and applies them to photography. lisakalloophotography.co.uk

Photo by Lisa Kalloo