The Homelessness of Water

Bill Wolak is a poet who lives in New Jersey. His works include LIPSTICK ACROPOLIS (Cross-Cultural Communications, 2021) with Carlos Ramos, The Nakedness Defense (Ekstasis Editions), THE SEEPAGE OF DREAMS (Cross-Cultural Communications, 2020), THE HOMLESSNESS OF WATER (Cross-Cultural Communications/New Feral Press, 2019), THE LAST WING (Cross-Cultural Communications, 2019), BECOME A RIVER (Cross-Cultural Communications/New Feral Press, 2018), THE LOVER'S BODY (Cross-Cultural Communications, 2014), Love Me More Than the Others: Selected Poetry of Iraj Mirza (Cross-Cultural Communications, 2014), WHATEVER NAKEDNESS ALLOWS (Cross-Cultural Communications, 2013), ARCHEOLOGY OF LIGHT (Cross-Cultural Communications, 2011), and LOVE EMERGENCIES (Cross-Cultural Communications, 2010). His poetry has appeared in over a hundred magazines. His translations have appeared in such magazines as The Sufi Journal, Basalt, Visions International, World Poetry Journal, and Atlanta Review. His critical work and interviews have appeared in Notre Dame Review, Persian Heritage Magazine, Gargoyle, Southern Humanities Review, and Prime Numbers Magazine. Mr. Wolak has been awarded several National Endowment for the Humanities scholarships and two Fulbright-Hays scholarships to study and travel in India. In 2007, he was selected to participate in a Friendship Delegation to Iran sponsored by the Fellowship of Reconciliation, America's largest and oldest interfaith peace and justice organization. During the Summer of 2010, Mr. Wolak was awarded a Field Study Opportunity in China and Japan by the National Consortium for Teaching about Asia. He was selected to be a featured poet at festivals in India five times: at the 2011 Kritya International Poetry Festival in Nagpur, at the 2013 Hyderabad Literary Festival, at the Tarjuma 2013: Festival of Translators in Ahmedabad, at the 2014 Hyderabad Literary Festival, and the 2017 Goa Arts and Literary Festival.

Author City: Bogota, NJ USA

Tomasz Marek Sobieraj is a poet, short story writer, essayist, art- and-literary critic, fine art and social documentary photographer. He was educated at Łódź University (geography, hydrology) and Lisbon University (statistics). Since 2000, he has published both literary-and- photographic works in various arts and letters journals in Poland and abroad. He received a fellowship from The Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. His poems have been translated into English, Russian, Spanish, Danish, Kurdish, Italian, Korean and Ukrainian. Sobieraj's photographs have been widely exhibited and in 2013, he was nominated for the 2014 Prix Pictet—The Global Award in Photography and Sustainability. Sobieraj's last book of poems, Dwoje na wzgórzu (The Two on the Hill) was published in 2018; in 2019 Cross-Cultural Communications published an English- Polish selection of his poems, FOURTEEN MINUTES. Tomasz Marek Sobieraj is the founder and editor-in-chief of Krytyka Literacka—the only independent Polish arts-and-letters magazine.

Author City: USA

Jacek Świerk is a poet and translator. He studied Polish Literature at Rzeszow University. He published two books of poetry. He is working on the third collection. His poems have appeared in numerous magazines, have been presented by a few radio stations in Poland and published in English and Portuguese. He is a co-author of three bilingual (English- Polish) selections of poems: David Day Powrót Ulissesa; Wiersze wybrane (co- translators: Tomasz Marek Sobieraj, Stanley H. Barkan, and Adam Szyper); and THE HOMELESSNESS OF WATER (Cross-Cultural Communications / New Feral Press, 2019) by William Wolak (co-translator: Tomasz Marek Sobieraj). He has translated into Polish some poems by Erik La Prade, William Heyen, Lisa Grunberger, Peter Thabit Jones, Steven Sher, Kyung-Nyun Kim Richards, and Anne Weichberger. His own poetry is politically incorrect, linguistic, ironic, religious, grotesque, realistic, biographical and narrative. He describes the moral and mental condition of men and women in the modern world. At present, he lives in Blizne (a village in Southeastern Poland).

Author City: USA