Maria Jastrzębska

Maria Jastrzębska (born 28 March 1953) is a Polish-British poet, feminist, editor, translator and playwright. She has published three full-length volumes of poetry and two pamphlets, and co-founded Queer Writing South and South Pole.^[1] She regularly contributes to a range of journals and anthologies, including the Los Angeles Review, Poetry Review, Shearsman and Poetry London.

Early life and education[]

Maria Jastrzębska was born in Warsaw and moved to the United Kingdom as a young child. She went to Ealing Grammar School for Girls, and the Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle, both in London. She later studied Developmental Psychology at the University of Sussex.^[2]

She has taught communication in further education, which included Youth Training Schemes, and also creative writing in adult education.

Literary career[]

Jastrzębska has been writing since she was very young; her first book, created before she could write, was entitled My Book and was filled with squiggles.

As a young adult, she began contributing to a range of feminist journals, including Spare Rib, Writing Women and Spinster.^[3]

Personal life[]

She lives with her partner in Brighton.

Works and themes[]

Jastrzębska's third full-length collection is At The Library of Memories.^[4] She is the co-founder of Queer Writing South and South Pole and co-edited Queer in Brighton (New Writing South 2014) with Anthony Luvera. Her poetry features in the British Library project Poetry Between Two Worlds and her drama Dementia Diaries toured nationally to sell-out audiences ('like a piece of chamber music, and transcends ... the literalness of language').^[5]

Jastrzębska's work focuses on borders and boundaries: between countries, cultures and languages,^[2] between social and sexual identities, health and illness. Her experience of arriving in the UK from Poland as a child, with having to adapt to a different language, culture and society, has informed all her written work. Poet and fellow ‘exile’ George Szirtes characterises says her "poems open out like adventures in a dual land that is both here and elsewhere".^[2]

Publications[]

Full-length collections[]

• Postcards from Poland and Other Correspondences (1990, with Jola Scicinska)ISBN 978-1870736060
• Home from Home (2002) ISBN 978-1900397575
• Syrena (2004) ISBN 978-8373893054
• I'll be Back Before You Know it (2008) ISBN 978-1906309060
• Everyday Angels (2009) ISBN 978-1906742102
• At the Library of Memories (2014) ISBN 978-1-906742-57-7
• The True Story of Cowboy Hat and Ingénue (2018) ISBN 978-1-911540-03-8

Play[]

• Dementia Diaries (2011)^[6]

Anthologies[]

• The New British Poetry, Paladin 1988 ISBN 9780586087657^[2]
• The Virago Book of Wicked Verse, Virago 1992, ISBN 1853813877
• Parents, Enitharmon, 2000 ISBN 9781900564717^[2]
• See How I Land – Oxford Poets & Refugees, Heaven Tree Press 2009 ISBN 9781906038380
• This Line Is Not For Turning: British Prose Poetry, Cinnamon Press 2011 ISBN 9781907090516
• This Assignment Is So Gay, Sibling Rivalry Press, USA, 2013 ISBN 978 1 937420420
• Hallelujah for 50ft Women, Bloodaxe 2015 ISBN 978 1 78037 1559

Translated works[]

• Cedry z Walpole Park (2015, with Anna Blasiak, Pawel Gawroriski and Wioletta Grzegorzewska) ISBN 978-8361381945
• Cutite vechi (2017, trans. Lidia Vianu) ISBN 978 606 8782 59-1

Translations[]

• Elsewhere, Iztok Osojnik, (with Ana Jeinikar) 2011 ISBN 9781906309091
• The Great Plan B, Justyna Bargielska 2017, Smokestack Press ISBN 978 0 9957675 4 6

Edited works[]

• Whoosh! A Queer Writing South Anthology (with John McCullough) ISBN 978-1-906309-05-3
• Different and Beautiful. An Anthology of Writing by LGBT young people from Allsorts Youth Project ISBN 0 9541554 83
• Queer in Brighton (2014, with Anthony Luvera) ISBN 978 0 9928260-0-0

References[]