ROZPETANIE / DELIVERANCE

English-Polish volume of 27 poems by Anna Blasiak with 27 photographs by Lisa Kalloo

It isn't exaggeration to say Deliverance is pioneering; it is a book of design, of illustration, a collaboration built upon a dynamic exchange across mediums; a collection of photopoetry, of image and poem, each elevating the other; all speaking with immediacy to what can be gleaned from personal experience. - SJ Fowler, poet, writer, organiser of European Poetry Festival in the UK

Anna Blasiak's poetry book has kicked me where it hurts. These are moving poems about discrimination on many levels, but also about love and finding oneself. Deliverance is a liberation, an unmasking, beautifully complemented by Lisa Kalloo's photographic collages. - Wioletta Greg, poet, novelist, longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize (2017) and shortlisted to the Griffin Poetry Prize (2015)

A series of poems about growing up queer in Poland in the 1980s. Deliverance has a narrative angle and explores themes of gender identity, LGBTQ rights, coming out, homophobia, women's rights etc, at the same time being mainly based on the author's family/societal history/background. The book has been written bilingually, in Polish and in English. The idea is that a reader can read each poem in either of the languages or in both of them simultaneously. The author has been exploring different techniques to achieve this result: mirroring, intertwining, playing on sounds in both languages. This is her attempt of showing the reality of somebody living between the languages, sometimes stretched between them - of somebody who, originally from Poland, has lived in the UK for over 20 years and who, as a translator, works in both of those languages on everyday basis.