Polish poetry has a centuries-old history, similar to the Polish literature.
Czesław Miłosz was a Polish-American poet, prose writer, translator, and diplomat. He primarily wrote his poetry in Polish. Regarded as one of the great poets of the 20th century, he won the 1980 Nobel Prize in Literature. In its citation, the Swedish Academy called Miłosz a writer who "voices man's exposed condition in a world of severe conflicts".
Maria Wisława Anna Szymborska was a Polish poet, essayist, translator, and recipient of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature. Born in Prowent, she resided in Kraków until the end of her life. In Poland, Szymborska's books have reached sales rivaling prominent prose authors', though she wrote in a poem, "Some Like Poetry", that "perhaps" two in a thousand people like poetry.
Polish literature is the literary tradition of Poland. Most Polish literature has been written in the Polish language, though other languages used in Poland over the centuries have also contributed to Polish literary traditions, including Latin, Yiddish, Lithuanian, Russian, German and Esperanto. According to Czesław Miłosz, for centuries Polish literature focused more on drama and poetic self-expression than on fiction. The reasons were manifold but mostly rested on the historical circumstances of the nation. Polish writers typically have had a more profound range of choices to motivate them to write, including past cataclysms of extraordinary violence that swept Poland, but also, Poland's collective incongruities demanding an adequate reaction from the writing communities of any given period.
Adam Bernard Mickiewicz was a Polish poet, dramatist, essayist, publicist, translator and political activist. He is regarded as national poet in Poland, Lithuania and Belarus. He also largely influenced Ukrainian literature. A principal figure in Polish Romanticism, he is one of Poland's "Three Bards" and is widely regarded as Poland's greatest poet. He is also considered one of the greatest Slavic and European poets and has been dubbed a "Slavic bard". A leading Romantic dramatist, he has been compared in Poland and Europe to Byron and Goethe.
Jan Kochanowski was a Polish Renaissance poet who wrote in Latin and Polish and established poetic patterns that would become integral to Polish literary language. He has been called the greatest Polish poet before Adam Mickiewicz and one of the most influential Slavic poets prior to the 19th century.
The Adam Mickiewicz University is a research university in Poznań, Poland. Due to its history, the university is traditionally considered among Poland's most reputable institutions of higher learning, this standing equally being reflected in national rankings.
Count Napoleon Stanisław Adam Feliks Zygmunt Krasiński was a Polish poet traditionally ranked after Adam Mickiewicz and Juliusz Słowacki as one of Poland's Three Bards – the Romantic poets who influenced national consciousness in the period of Partitions of Poland.
The Nike Literary Award is a literary prize awarded each year for the best book of a single living author writing in Polish and published the previous year. It is widely considered the most important award for Polish literature. Established in 1997 and funded by Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland's second largest daily paper, and the consulting company NICOM, it is conferred annually in October. It is open for nominees from all literary genres, including non-fiction essays and autobiographies.
The Three Bards are the national poets of Polish Romantic literature. The term is almost exclusively used to denote Adam Mickiewicz (1798–1855), Juliusz Słowacki (1809–1849) and Zygmunt Krasiński (1812–1859). Of the three, Mickiewicz is considered the most influential and Krasiński the least.
Kultura —sometimes referred to as Kultura Paryska —was a leading Polish-émigré literary-political magazine, published from 1947 to 2000 by Instytut Literacki, initially in Rome and then in Paris. It was edited and produced by Jerzy Giedroyc and ceased publication upon his death.
Odra is a Polish monthly art and culture magazine which has the reputation of an opinion-maker. The magazine provides news and commentaries on art and culture in Poland and abroad.
Wydawnictwo Literackie is a Kraków-based Polish publishing house, which has been referred to as one of Poland's "most respected".
A Treatise on Poetry is book-length poem in Polish by Nobel Prize-winning poet Czesław Miłosz on Polish literature, poetry and history from 1900 to 1949. Written in 1955 and 1956, it was first published in book form in 1957 and won that year's literary prize from Kultura. The Treatise is considered one of Miłosz's greatest works.
Twórczość is a Polish monthly literary journal, first published in 1945. Since 1 April 2000, Twórczość has been published by the state-funded Book Institute. It publishes poetry, fiction and literary criticism.
Hatif Janabi is an Iraqi poet, translator and author. Born near Babylon in 1952, he studied Arabic language and literature at Baghdad University. He moved to Warsaw, Poland in 1976 for higher studies, eventually obtaining a master's degree in Polish language and literature and a PhD in drama, both from Warsaw University. He has lived in Poland ever since and now teaches Arabic language and literature at Warsaw University. He has also taught at the University of Tizi Ouzou and Indiana University.
Clare Cavanagh is an American literary critic, a Slavist, and a translator. She is the Frances Hooper Professor in the Arts and Humanities and Chair of the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Northwestern University. An acclaimed translator of contemporary Polish poetry, she is currently under contract to write the authorized biography of Czesław Miłosz. She holds a B.A from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and an M.A. and PhD from Harvard University. Before coming to Northwestern University, she taught at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Her work has been translated into Russian, Polish, Hungarian, French, Dutch, Chinese, and Japanese.
Christophe Jezewski, in Polish Krzysztof Andrzej Jeżewski is a poet, musicologist, essayist and translator of Polish descent who has been living in France since 1970.
The Wisława Szymborska Award is a Polish annual international literature prize presented by the Wisława Szymborska Foundation. It was established in 2013, and was named in honour of the Nobel Prize-winning poet Wisława Szymborska (1923–2012).
The 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the Polish poet Wisława Szymborska (1923–2012) "for poetry that with ironic precision allows the historical and biological context to come to light in fragments of human reality." Szymborska is the 9th female recipient and the 5th Nobel laureate from Poland after Czesław Miłosz in 1980.