Within Contraption, by Paweł Grajnert

Poetry, chapbook, 44 pages, from Bottlecap Features.

Within Contraption is a collection of poems that moves across geographies and histories with the restlessness of a weather-beaten traveler. The poems expose the machinery of modern life: bureaucracy, nationalism, war, migration and the strange habits of everyday language. Scenes shift from Chicago streets to European history, from family kitchens to political spectacle insisting on the stubborn persistence of conscience.

At the center of this collection of poems is a simple but urgent question: What does it mean to remain human inside the strange and often violent contraptions we create for ourselves and each other? These poems challenge inherited stories about nation, progress and identity while searching for forms of solidarity that might outlast ideology.

Paweł Grajnert is a writer, filmmaker and visual artist working in Poland and the US.