Meadows of Memory

Lidia Kosk, poet, writer, educator, lawyer, and photographer, is the author of twelve books of poetry and prose, and two anthologies. Her collaboration with her daughter, the poet and translator Danuta E. Kosk-Kosicka, resulted in two bilingual volumes: Niedosyt/Reshapings (Oficyna Dziennikarzy i Literatów POD WIATR, 2003) and S¿odka woda, s¿ona woda/Sweet Water, Salt Water (ASTRA, 2009). The latter book has been translated into Japanese by Hiroko Tsuji and Izumi Nakamura, and published in Japan in 2016. Lidia collaborated with her husband, Henryk P. Kosk, on the two-volume Poland's Generals: A Popular Biographical Lexicon (Ajaks, 1998, 2001). Her most recent book is Szklana góra/Glass Mountain (Komograf, 2017), edited by Danuta E. Kosk-Kosicka. The book comprises renditions of her poem "Szklana góra" in twenty-two languages, ranging from Arabic to Italian to Occitan to Russian, as well as to a work of visual art for the cover. The translators, hailing from several countries on three continents, were thrilled by the poem. Lidia's poem brought them all together to celebrate the power of poetry and connectedness throughout the world. Recently, music professor Sal Ferrantelli composed the score for "Szklana góra." The world premiere performance of the song by the soprano Laura Kafka-Price was in May 2019 at the Arts Club in Washington, DC. As was typical of her generation, Lidia Kosk came of age during World War II and survived first the Nazi occupation of Poland, and then the Stalinist regime imposed on Poland by the Soviet Union. Her poetry bears witness to history and at the same time is an affirmation of life. Lidia's poems and prose have been published in literary journals and anthologies in the USA, Poland, Russia and Japan; discussed and reviewed in English-, Polish- and Japanese-language publications; and featured on public radio in the USA and Poland, and in multimedia video presentations. In 2012, for Mother's Day, the National Public Radio station WYPR's The Signal broadcast a program featuring her, speaking from her Warsaw apartment, and her daughter-translator in the studio in Baltimore. Composer Philip A. Olsen translated a series of her poems into choral compositions and the McDonogh School choir has performed them in several countries, including the USA, Peru, Portugal, and Spain. Olsen's "Polish Triptych" comprising his three choral compositions to Danuta's translations of Lidia's poems premiered in Baltimore in May 2017. Lidia resides in Warsaw, Poland, where she leads literary workshops and a Poets' Theater (ATP). For more see: http://gm.kosk.xyz/ and danutakk.wordpress.com/about-lidia-kosk/