Ilona Gołębiewska
Ilona Gołębiewska - b. March 24, 1987 in Wyszków. A poet. Her debut volume of poetry was „The Treaty of life” (Miniatura 2012). She attended Piotr Skarga High School in Pultusk. A graduate of Sociology and Pedagogy at the Faculty of Humanities University of Life Sciences in Warsaw. She wrote a PhD on the history of education and received scholarships of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education in the academic year 2010/2011. The author of scientific and academic papers on cultural memory and social history of education, regional education and the mass media. She participated in national and international scientific conferences. Author of the book „The image of old age in Maria Kuncewiczowa’s prose”. Since 2010 a member of the research team in the Polish-Russian research project „Collective memory as a means for socialization and identification: Russia and Poland”, carried out by the State University of Humanities in Moscow. Member of the research team as part of a research grant, „The years 1944/1945 in Warsaw - in the collective memory of Poles and Russians. The difficult communities of remembering and the inconvenient sites of memory”. The winner of the student competition: Student Nobel in 2010 and 2011 and Primus Inter Pares in 2011 (at institutional and provincial level). Author of the blog „Ilona Gołębiewska - literary and scientific inspirations” and fairy tales, stories for children and young people. Member of the Association „White Wilderness - My Little Homeland”, promoter of Kurpie region culture. Her research interests revolve around the areas such as history, individual and collective memory, history of education and educational system, culture and history of the region, and social communication. She is interested in the collective memory of the participants of World War II and former prisoners of Nazi labor camps and extermination camps in Poland. She is lover of Polish and foreign literature and culture of Spain, sung poetry and handicrafts of Kurpie region culture.
Contact: ilona.golebiewska@gmail.com
Treaty of Life
What can I tell about life…
… being only 25?
Only that much…
And yet maybe that’s enough…
… does not guarantee happpiness,
… gets what it wants,
… kills desperate human’s pleas,
… rarely doesn’t it have its reasons.
Doesn’t drag at all, promises were different though…
Changes childish dreams into empty days…
No surprises and if so, only the bad ones…
Wastes time on wasting time…
I’ve learnt a lot – people differ,
just like their words and deeds.
Cheerful smile is not enough,
when pride and envy is rocking in the heart.
What is writing boring treaties for?
To compare yourself now and in a few years.
I\\\'m afraid of only one... disappointment.
What will I do when the bill is not right?
Life changes people... often for the worse,
I do not want such changes, I want to be who I am.
Let the Treaty of Life always reminds me...
who I used to be, when life did not fail me.
Warsaw 2012
Childhood dream
I remember, as if it’s been yesterday,
up there stood our house of no address.
Sizzling logs assured of your love,
rhythmical flames made the space snug.
Plenty of place for love in this cramped room,
tranquil and triumphant in its ruling.
Your hands gently caressed my fair hair,
trying to protect me from the crazy world.
Your joyful faces drove away my evil thoughts,
it was so wonderful, as it should be at home.
The place where the indomitable memory,
dumped a powerful anchor of human destiny.
Today I do not know if it was true?
Or maybe unfulfilled childhood dream?
There is no us, no home, no love,
fate threw me in uneasy terrain.
Strangers, alien place, all unknown,
I miss home and the warmth of your hand.
In my heart I planted a tiny seed,
from which will grow a fruit of parental love.
Childhood dream goes on...
and is becoming a reality in my calendar.
I come to my beloved home, and I know
I will always be embraced by your warm hands.
It will be like in the olden days... yet not the same,
now my hands will wrap your silver heads.
Again fire will sizzle... like when...
the childhood dream used to be true.
Warsaw 2012
21st century
I’m done with 21st century schooling…
don’t look people in the eye
no helping hand
not even a good word.
I speak to my plastic earset
admire glass-walled houses
talk to an electronic face
exchanging life into virtual currency.
Not me, just an assigned number
got to adjust, keep up
and when I leave, unnoticed
they’ll stash my ashes into a cold urn.
No resting place for such
“so many opportunities” - encrypted people say
I’m no fit in the contemporary world’s pace
Cloning is not my thing.
Will last to the end without pointless words
I\\\'m not complaining at the time granted to me
although my heart yearns for the past
and people without masks on artificial faces.
Pultusk 2010
English 
Spanish
