Dr Bohdan Piasecki

• PhD in Translation Studies (University of Warwick)
• MA in English Studies (University of Warsaw)

I am a poet with an interest in writing for voice and in site-specific responsive work, with many shows, projects, and collaborations, and twenty years of experience in performance and site-specific work.  In 2003, I founded the first poetry slam series in Poland. Since then, I have taken part in projects such as  Smoke and Mirrors (a multilingual poetry and music ensemble show which toured 21 European cities); Palimpsest City (an ACE-funded poetry show combining non-linear storytelling with a virtual city tour); The Spalding Suite (I worked as part of the writing team for Inua Ellams’s show on basketball and masculinity); the Corner (a poetry game show developed and performed in an indoor market); A Day Will Come (writing and a tour for this European folk music album led by Will Pound);  Our Wilder Family (a long poem created for for Coventry City of Culture and set to music and accompanied by the UK’s largest drone animation); Where We Grow, a combination of community research and site-specific art; and Hot Poets, an eco-poetry project focused on highlighting solutions. In October 2023 was awarded the inaugural Forward Prize for Best Single Poem – performed.

Before my appointment as Assistant Professor in Creative Writing here at the University of Birmingham, I was a regular visiting Teaching Fellow at UoB’s Department of Film and Creative Writing, with duties ranging from teaching individual lectures to planning and delivering entire modules, as well as supervising dissertation work on BA and MA levels. I have held the post of Director of Education for the pioneering Spoken Word Education programme at Goldsmiths, as part of the MA in Creative Writing and Education in 2014-15. Before moving to the UK, I held the post of Lecturer at the SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Warsaw, Poland.
I have a PhD in Translation Studies from the University of Warwick, and my research interests include the politics of representation through literary translation.

I also have extensive professional experience as creative producer. For 7 years, I was the Midlands Producer for Apples and Snakes. I managed multiple projects while in post, ranging from event series to development projects (selected examples include Hit the Ode, Level UP, Lit Fuse, Wordsmiths & Co, Bright Smoke, Poets' Place, Shake the Dust, Public Address, etc.) I have also worked as General Manager and Creative Producer with Beatfreeks. - with work including moving open platforms from live to digital spaces, working cross-discipline on artistic commissions based on sociological research, devising innovative international trust-based arts funding schemes, and more. 

Undergraduate

• Poetry Writing
• Creative Writing Project
• Creative Writing Foundation B

Postgraduate

• The Writer’s Workshop
• Poem as Story - Story as Poem

I am the course convenor for the MA in Creative Writing.

I would be excited to work on all forms of poetry, with a particular interest in work which touches on multilingualism, translation, voice as a medium, storytelling, and the experimental. I would also consider hybrid projects combining poetry with other forms of writing.

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Find out more - our PhD Creative Writing  page has information about doctoral research at the University of Birmingham.

My own creative practice is rooted in performance and voice, and it has expanded to include storytelling, formal experimentation, multilingualism, and translation. My research interests include poetry written for the voice, translation as a tool for creative writing, and the role of poetic approaches in other forms of writing, especially at the stage of idea development in narratives. My current creative research includes spoken word as literary practice; poetry as conversation, with direct interventions in communities as a vehicle; and poetry as a means of interrogating the intersection of personal and national histories, as a way to re-introduce the nuanced and the complicated into a polarised space.