Psalm to Saint Sabina by Radosław Wiśniewski is the first publication released by a Ramsgate-based indie publisher, Sideways Press, set up in 2025 by a poet and translator, Anna Blasiak, and a photographer and artist, Lisa Kalloo.
The first Sideways Press book is a long poem in 88 stanzas called Psalm to Saint Sabina which came out in Poland in several editions. It tells a story of Sabina Szopf, the protagonist’s (and the poet’s) great-grandmother and her turbulent life. Sabina was born in the Tsarist Russia in the year 1900, lived under the Soviet and German occupations and ended up settling after WW2 in the town of Brzeg in Silesia in Poland, previously a German town of Brieg. This book-length poem is a kind of personal and private process of sanctification of the protagonist’s great-grandmother, written in the language on one hand referencing Bible, psalms and litanies, and on the other hand simple and at times very colloquial, tinged with Sabina’s Eastern Borderlands linguistic quirks.
The book will be launched during an exhibition called “The Lives of Saint Sabina” at Ramsgate’s Hold Creative Spaces. The exhibition will run from 17 till 19 April.
HOLD GALLERY, Penstone House, Albert Street, Ramsgate, 17-19 April 2026
Friday, 17 April, 6-9pm: PRIVATE VIEW
Saturday, 18 April, open 12-7pm
6pm: POETRY EXPLAINED (Book Launch) with RADOSŁAW WIŚNIEWSKI over Zoom
Sunday, 19 April, open 12-5pm
1-3pm: PHOTOGRAPHY EXPLAINED with LISA KALLOO