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08.11.06, 23:05
CHICAGO HUMANITIES FESTIVAL
and the
POLISH CULTURAL INSTITUTE
present:
Passion and Witness,
A Celebration of Twentieth Century Polish Poetry
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2:00 - 3:30 PM
Chicago Public Library, Harold Washington Library Center
400 S. State St., Chicago, IL
Tickets: $5.00
The 17th Annual Chicago Humanities Festival this year takes on a theme that
remains, alas, as daunting and urgent as ever—the interpenetrations of Peace
and War. A huge topic rendered vaster by our insistence on exploring not only
its present incarnation, but its history and future prospects.
Much of the bloody history of the 20th century was played out across Poland’s
broad, flat plains, explaining perhaps why that country’s national poetry
captures so eloquently what it meant to witness, survive, and honor our
entire epoch. Six distinguished writers – Azar Nafisi, Grace Paley, Clare
Cavanagh, Vijay Seshadri, Ronne Hartfield, and Lawrence Weschler –
accompanied by the sublime Polish actress Elzbieta Czyzewska, celebrate by
reading from the work of five great Polish poets: Czeslaw Milosz, Tadeusz
Rozewicz, Zbigniew Herbert, Wislawa Szymborska, and Adam Zagajewski.
