DACAMERA Presents TRUE LIFE: A CELEBRATION OF POET ADAM ZAGAJEWSKI, February 27

On Monday, February 27 (7:30 pm), DACAMERA, a leading presenter and producer of chamber music, jazz and interdisciplinary work, and Inprint, a nonprofit literary organization, will join forces at The Menil Collection in Houston to host a heartfelt evening of poetry and music honoring the life and work of Adam Zagajewski (1945 - 2021), internationally renowned Polish poet and visiting member of the Houston community for nearly two decades. Tickets are $40, available at dacamera.com.

Following the live event, the program will be available as a free live stream starting on Monday, March 6. The link will be posted that morning on DACAMERA's website, along with the organization's Instagram feed, YouTube channel, Facebook page, and Twitter account, and will be available through Sunday, March 19.

The program features a selection of readings from Zagajewski's work, interwoven with the music of Bach, Chopin, Shostakovich, Schubert, and Mahler that inspired him, performed by pianist Sarah Rothenberg (DACAMERA's Artistic Director) and French cellist Sonia Wieder-Atherton.

Participating readers include Rothenberg, celebrated writer/Guggeheim Foundation President Edward Hirsch, Inprint Executive Director Rich Levy, and Houston philanthropist Lillie Robertson, who had been among Zagajewski's closest friends.

Adam Zagajewski was one of Poland's most famous contemporary poets, and was a prominent member of the Polish New Wave. He published eight poetry collections in English, including Asymmetry, Eternal Enemies, Without End, and Mysticism for Beginners. Translated around the world, Zagajewski received many of literature's most prestigious international awards, such as the 2004 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, the 2010 European Poetry Prize, and the 2013 Zhongkun International Poetry Prize.

Through his insightful and quietly radiant poems, Zagajewski acquired loyal readers around the world; and as a member of the UH Creative Writing Program faculty for eighteen years and faculty member of the University of Chicago's Committee on Social Thought, he leaves a vibrant legacy of friends, students, and colleagues across the U.S.

An English-language translation of Zagajewski's last collection True Life will be published this month by Farrar, Strauss & Giroux. (The original Polish collection was published in 2019.) About this forthcoming edition, Publisher's Weekly writes in a starred review, "While devastating truths anchor the reader to a foreclosed present, there is evidence of hope in beauty. This is a remarkable collection by one of the century's finest poets."

Reviewing two earlier collections, Charles Simic in The New York Review of Books observes that Zagajewski's poems "celebrate those rare moments when we catch a glimpse of the world from which all labels have been unpeeled." In the words of Mary Oliver, Zagajewski is "the most pertinent, impressive, meaningful poet of our time."

In an essay titled Poetry and Music for the UK literary journal PN Review, Sarah Rothenberg wrote: "Music has always been central to Adam Zagajewski's writing... Not being a musician himself, [he] is free to wander in music's mysteries, culling from the works of Schubert, Mahler, Shostakovich, a seed that becomes a poem. Capturing in the listener's experience a sensation that is unique to music, that is free from the connotations of spoken language and exists in its own realm... Adam's sensitivity as a listener opens up unknown worlds to him that he then reflects back to us in words. He recently wrote, 'Music reminds us what love is. If you've forgotten what love is, go listen to music.'"

To post a comment, you must register and login.