“Some Like Poetry” – A Tribute to Poet Wislawa Szymborska

2023 has been announced the Year of Wislawa Szymborska. We celebrate the Polish Nobel Prize Winning Poet during an evening of poetry and music. Please join the literary critic Jaroslaw Anders, actor Omar Sangare, translator Joanna Huss and pianist Martin Labazevitch in paying tribute to the poet.

The space is limited. Please RSVP HERE

Omar Sangare is one of most influential people in theatre. Dr. Sangare graduated from the National Academy of Dramatic Art in Warsaw, Poland, where he studied with the Oscar-winning director, Andrzej Wajda. He was awarded a scholarship to The British American Drama Academy in Oxford, England. While there, he worked with Derek Jacobi, Alan Rickman, Michael Kahn, and Jeremy Irons. He holds many film, television, and radio credits. For his one-man drama “True Theater Critic,” he was voted The Best in Acting by The New York International Fringe Festival. The New York press acclaimed his lead part in the Arena Players Repertory Theater production of “Othello.” Barbara Delatiner wrote for “The New York Times”—“Omar Sangare was born to play Othello!” His published six books and many essays and articles for various magazines and newspapers. He was selected by the U.S. Department of State for a video project that appeared as part of President Obama’s trip to Poland. Dr. Sangare is a founder and artistic director of UNITED SOLO, the world’s largest solo theatre festival, a resident company at Theatre Row on 42nd Street in New York City. Omar Sangare was born to present his talents internationally through a thriving career as an actor, director, writer, producer, educator, and philanthropist. His published literary work includes two books of poetry, collections of short stories, as well as many essays and articles for various magazines and newspapers. Performing with major American writers such as Clare Cavanagh, Robert Pinsky and Susan Sontag, he promoted his Polish writing in the United States.

Joanna Trzeciak Huss is professor of translation studies at Kent State University. She has written on the poetry of Anna Akhmatova, the self-translation of Vladimir Nabokov, the poetry of Tadeusz Różewicz, and translation as palimpsest.  She is associate editor of The Polish Review and has edited special issues on Olga Tokarczuk and Stanisław Lem. Her translations in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Times Literary Supplement, Harpers, The Atlantic, Paris Review, Field, Zvezda, Boston Review, nonsite, Pleiades and The Hopkins Review, among others. Her books of poetry translation include Miracle Fair: Selected Poems of Wisława Szymborska (W.W. Norton) and Sobbing Superpower: Selected Poems of Tadeusz Różewicz (W.W. Norton). Her Firebird: Collected Poems of Zuzanna Ginczanka is forthcoming in 2023 from Zephyr Press. She is the recipient of the 2020 Michael Heim Prize for Collegial Translation.

Jaroslaw Anders is a Polish literary critic, translator, and editor living in Washington DC. He is the author of Between Fire and Sleep: Essays on Modern Polish Poetry and Prose(Yale, 2009), and many essays published in The New York Review of Books, The New Republic, The Los Angeles Book Review, and other publications. He translated into Polish books by Susan Sontag, and into English Barbarian in the Garden by Zbigniew Herbert, Rondoby Kazimierz Brandys, and The Subtenant by Hanna Krall.

Praised by critics in Europe and the United States for his lyricism, virtuosity and an intensity of performance, pianist and Steinway Artist, Martin Labazevitch appeared in many concert halls and festivals around the world. Dr. Labazevitch has been a soloist with numerous leading orchestras. In 2015, Dr. Labazevitch released his first commercial recording on Delos Music label, to very enthusiastic reviews in Poland, France, Germany and the United States. Born in Poland, Mr. Labazevitch studied at the Odessa Conservatory in Ukraine, with Anatoly Kardashev, before immigrating to the United States in 2000. He graduated from the Manhattan School of Music.