Agnieszka August-Zarębska debuted as a poet last year with a collection titled “po jej wewnętrznej stronie” (Eng. “her internal side”). First, she won the 2021 Poetry Book Debut Award, and now she was nominated for the Golden Orpheus Award – one of the most prestigious Polish poetic awards.
Agnieszka August-Zarębska is a scholar in Polish, Spanish and Sephardi literature. She studied Spanish Philology at the University of Wroclaw, where she also defended her doctorate titled “Poetry and Reality. Poetic Epiphanies of Jorge Guillén and Czesław Miłosz.” In 2021, she published her first and only poetry book. “her internal side” (stylised) talks about the female experience, pain, illnesses and passing away through the details of the human body. The poems resemble haiku; they’re simple and rather stripped of metaphors.
The poetess was awarded the Anna Świrszczyńska Poetry Book Debut 2021, an award that promotes new poets and helps them achieve bigger successes such as being nominated to the K.I. Gałczyński Award a.k.a the Golden Orpheus. The contest is organised by the Museum of Konstanty Ildefons Gałczyński. This year, there was a record number of applications – 288. Out of those, 20 were nominated for the main category, August-Zarębska among them.
The next stage of the competition will take place in June when 5 finalists will be picked. The award ceremony will take place on July 30th in Pranie, the village where the Museum of K.I. Gałczyński is settled. During the event, the poems of all nominees will be recited by the students of the National Academy of Dramatic Art in Warsaw. You can follow the updates of the competition on its site.