The exhibition TU : PLEI will be open 20-25 July 2021 at Stroud Brewery, 9am-5pm.
© Maria Stadnicka, 22nd July 2021
‘Water Sequence’ poem © Maria Stadnicka, 2020
The poem ‘Water Sequence’ features in the latest collection ‘Somnia’ published by the Knives, Forks and Spoons Press, United Kingdom and it is officially released today.
‘Somnia’ is now available here and here.
Cover art work © Mark Mawer, 2019
Photography: © John Stadnicki, 2020
Original music ‘Vide Cor Meum’ © Patrick Cassidy and Hans Zimmer for ‘Hannibal’ (2001).
SOMNIA Knives, Forks, Spoons Press / Sep. 2019
Nietzsche insists that a person must
find at least one truth before a good
night sleep. A terrible prospect
considering how facts come about,
with their own sets of variables.
wind force,
speed in metres per second,
momentum at impact with a surface,
temperature
and friction between molecules
Ninety-degree angles do not exist
in real life. Until now we have been tricked
by scientists into believing in verticality.
Meanwhile they build a simplified version
of the world, a dummy manual, if you like,
for funding purposes.
© Maria Stadnicka 2020
Published in ‘International Times’ on 29 Feb 2020.
Sunday lingers on scent of paint,
tobacco and spring. Our kitchen-war
sprouts from a conversation on books
about people we both know. I say
I’d met doctor Zhivago queuing
at Nero’s, heard him asking a barista
about the fate of taiga-trees
at the height of a mining season.
You think they are cut short then stop
growing. I lock my paperbacks
in a cupboard; they remind us
of all the ink twisted in verse, seeded
in layers of gravel. Our verbs reach
the pit of a quarry and seal over.
Snow forests shoot up in tears,
we trip over cables in our flat.
© Maria Stadnicka 2020
Published in ‘Stride Magazine’on 26 Feb 2020.
Illustration © Claire Palmer 2020
after Kasparov vs Karpov, 1986
The playground is open, with white to move.
D4 F6. A few pawn boys make a safety zone
out by the swings, waiting for Father to fall for the ruse.
C4 G6. Everyone calls the queen Sis’ Loretta
when she jumps over the Treatment Room’s steps
to the battlefield. The fifth move: Q to B3.
By the eleventh round, the game enters
a phase of hand-to-hand combat. Father attacks,
we defend on each side. Sister gets hurt,
two pawn boys, sacrificed, but nobody castles.
Our fight, bishop to rook. Checked on the playground
as the last knight falls at the match point.
Most pieces are gone on both front lines. Thirty-one
moves. Checkmate. From the opposing team,
Father says we are playing a game bigger than us.
© Maria Stadnicka 2020
Published in ‘International Times’ on 8th February 2020.
Poetry reading: Maria Stadnicka reading the poem City from the collection Imperfect published by Yew Tree Press, 2017. Poem published in International Times, January 2017.
Music: Katie McCue
Video footage: World War One Archive
The newspaper of resistance brings you a new text:
In a country where all books are forbidden,
the hurricane spits out a new world
with a new legacy of destruction.
People stop by the house with a light on and a blue door,
the house with boarded-up windows where
the mandolin player keeps an eye
on his own basement revolution.
These are the days when the truth learns to
travel on cigarette papers, between prison cells,
before the police arrives
to evacuate.
Ink on paper: ‘Fisherman’, Maria Stadnicka
The dreadful day we had feared
arrived at last. Possibly March the first.
At the picket line.
We held hands with the same familiar tenderness
maybe shared the same memories witnessing
the course of events as the revolution unravelled.
With a kind of regret my fist hit
the walls of a prison surrounded by weaved carpets.
With photographs stored in books
different directions awaited.
Never to see each other again.
I am the best like this
with nothing left
hanging
dried purple tulips
at each door handle.
With no audience
I face the blackness of each line
to learn what remains of reality.
The hope that all could be new
when everything is
already gone.
@Maria Stadnicka
Maria Stadnicka 