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Stanislav GrohovyakPolish poet.
Date of Birth: 24.01.1934
Country:  Poland |
Content:
Biography of Stanisław Grochowiak
Stanisław Grochowiak was a Polish poet, prose writer, and playwright. He lived in Leszno and Wrocław before moving to Warsaw in 1955. Grochowiak worked in the Catholic publishing house "PAX" and in the editorial offices of newspapers and magazines. He was the chief editor of the leading literary youth newspaper, "Współczesność" (Contemporary). He made his debut as a poet and also worked as a prose writer and playwright, with several of his plays being adapted for the screen. He published a representative two-volume anthology of Polish poetry in 1973.
After a serious illness exacerbated by longstanding alcoholism, Grochowiak passed away. He was buried at the Powązki Military Cemetery. His first publication of poems in periodicals was in 1951, and his first book of poems, "Knightly Ballad," was published in 1956. In his subsequent collections, such as "Minuet with a Poker" (1958) and "Undressing for Sleep" (1959), he developed the aesthetics of the grotesque, becoming the founder of turpism in Polish poetry, as coined by poet Julian Przyboś (from Latin "turpis" meaning hideous, repulsive; Przyboś also included Ruziewicz and Białoszewski in this movement). Grochowiak's poems were symbolically oriented around figures such as Rabelais, Bruegel, Villon, and Sancho Panza. The publication of his anti-war poem "Totentanz in Polen" (1969) became a significant event in literature. Later, he adopted a more balanced style, close to Polish baroque, but he particularly appreciated the irregular verses of Father Baka.
Publications in Russian
- Selected Poems. Modern Polish Poetry. Moscow: Progress, 1971
- Selected Poems. Astafyeva N., Britanishsky V. Polish Poets of the 20th Century. Vol. 2. St. Petersburg: Aleteya, 2000, pp. 270-282 (translated by Nat. Astafyeva)
