Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska, Maria

▪ Polish poet

née  Maria Kossak  

born November 24, 1891, Krakau, Austro-Hungarian Empire [now Kraków, Poland]

died July 9, 1945, Manchester, England

      Polish poet whose work is representative of modern lyrical poetry. She is particularly notable for the urbane sensitivity of her poems.

      As a daughter of the well-known painter Wojciech Kossak, Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska grew up in an artistic and intellectual milieu. Her first collection of poems, Niebieskie migdały (1922; “Idle Dreams”), was warmly acclaimed by the poets of the Skamander group. Up to 1939 she published a dozen more small volumes of her lyric poetry—including Pocałunki (1926; “Kisses”) and Surowy jedwab (1932; “Raw Silk”)—in which she dealt with such subject matter as the loves, the disenchantments, and the carefree life of a sophisticated modern woman.

      During World War II she immigrated to France and later to England, where, lamenting her exile, she expressed her feelings in Róża i lasy płonące (1940; “A Rose and Burning Forests”) and in Gołąb ofiarny (1941; “The Sacrificial Dove”). Many of her poems can be found in English translation in the volume Butterflies: Selected Poems, translated by Barbara Plebanek and Tony Howard.

* * *