The Crooked Mirror l Louise Steinman’s Blog

Journeys within and beyond

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Greenwriting on the Skarpa

Greenwriting on the Skarpa

It’s dark when we arrive at Katy’s house in the Polish countryside, early fall, 2019. My friend and I, both road-weary, climb a flight of wooden stairs to retire. My friend installs herself in the bedroom of Katy’s daughter, Magda, now a young doctor in London. I bed down in the room that belongs to Katy’s son, Sammy, a classics major at the University of Warsaw. Everywhere there are stacks of book, fascinating books. Philosophy. History. Poetry. Books in Polish. Books in English. I want to look at all of them, but I’m so sleepy. Before I crash, I peek into Katy’s room/studio, noting piles of notebooks, vibrant watercolors. A chorus of frogs serenades me through the open window as I fall asleep.

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Welcome the Stranger: An urban installation for social engagement  [Lublin, Poland]

Welcome the Stranger: An urban installation for social engagement [Lublin, Poland]

It's been an intense and magical week in Lublin, Poland. A Kabbalistic text appears over the archway of the Brama Grodzka; a flamingo is invited to perch in a storks nest high in a poplar tree; the words of Polish veterans from Afghanistan and Iraq are projected on the walls of the cultural center, reminding us of the hospitality that veterans need after the trauma of war. In the passageway of one the crooked streets of the Old Town, the voice of the local poet Jozef Czechowicz— killed in the German bombardment of September, 1939— fills the air... just near the vinyl record shop where they're playing Talking Heads and Miles Davis. And at the Old Well in what is now the bus depot— and was once the Jewish quarter of Lublin— a voice sings forth on the hour with the words of asylum seekers, some from Guatemala, some from Eritrea, Iraq. "I don't even know where this ship is taking me." "I'm sorry cousin, I could not save you."

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