Thơ Chọn Lọc

by Wisława Szymborska, Tạ Minh Châu (Translator)

This collection of Szymborska's work reveals her to be concerned with the unglamorized actualities of the human condition. She is one of a generation of Polish poets which witnessed the years of Soviet oppression and spoke for the feelings of the Polish people.

Genres: Poetry, Poland, Nobel Prize, Polish Literature, Classics, Literature, Womens

Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Wisława Szymborska (Polish pronunciation: [vʲisˈwava ʂɨmˈbɔrska], born July 2, 1923 in Kórnik, Poland) is a Polish poet, essayist, and translator. She was awarded the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature. In Poland, her books reach sales rivaling prominent prose authors—although she once remarked in a poem entitled "Some like poetry" [Niektórzy lubią poezję] that no more than two out of a thousand people care for the art.

Szymborska frequently employs literary devices such as irony, paradox, contradiction, and understatement, to illuminate philosophical themes and obsessions. Szymborska's compact poems often conjure large existential puzzles, touching on issues of ethical import, and reflecting on the condition of people both as individuals and as members of human society. Szymborska's style is succinct and marked by introspection and wit.

Szymborska's reputation rests on a relatively small body of work: she has not published more than 250 poems to date. She is often described as modest to the point of shyness[citation needed]. She has long been cherished by Polish literary contemporaries (including Czesław Miłosz) and her poetry has been set to music by Zbigniew Preisner. Szymborska became better known internationally after she was awarded the 1996 Nobel Prize. Szymborska's work has been translated into many European languages, as well as into Arabic, Hebrew, Japanese and Chinese.

In 1931, Szymborska's family moved to Kraków. She has been linked with this city, where she studied, worked.

When World War II broke out in 1939, she continued her education in underground lessons. From 1943, she worked as a railroad employee and managed to avoid being deported to Germany as a forced labourer. It was during this time that her career as an artist began with illustrations for an English-language textbook. She also began writing stories and occasional poems.

Beginning in 1945, Szymborska took up studies of Polish language and literature before switching to sociology at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. There she soon became involved in the local writing scene, and met and was influenced by Czesław Miłosz. In March 1945, she published her first poem Szukam słowa ("I seek the word") in the daily paper Dziennik Polski; her poems continued to be published in various newspapers and periodicals for a number of years. In 1948 she quit her studies without a degree, due to her poor financial circumstances; the same year, she married poet Adam Włodek, whom she divorced in 1954. At that time, she was working as a secretary for an educational biweekly magazine as well as an illustrator.

During Stalinism in Poland in 1953 she participated in the defamation of Catholic priests from Kraków who were groundlessly condemned by the ruling Communists to death.[1] Her first book was to be published in 1949, but did not pass censorship as it "did not meet socialist requirements." Like many other intellectuals in post-war Poland, however, Szymborska remained loyal to the PRL official ideology early in her career, signing political petitions and praising Stalin, Lenin and the realities of socialism. This attitude is seen in her debut collection Dlatego żyjemy ("That is what we are living for"), containing the poems Lenin and Młodzieży budującej Nową Hutę ("For the Youth that Builds Nowa Huta"), about the construction of a Stalinist industrial town near Kraków. She also became a member of the ruling Polish United Workers' Party.

Like many Polish intellectuals initially close to the official party line, Szymborska gradually grew estranged from socialist ideology and renounced her earlier political work. Although she did not officially leave the party until 1966, she began to establish contacts with dissidents. As early as 1957, she befriended Jerzy Giedroyc, the editor of the influential Paris-based emigré journal Kultura, to which she also contributed. In 1964 s

Reviews

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nobel poetry! This got under my skin!

I think I owe it partly to this collection that I started loving modern poetry and sharing this love with the next generation.

I remember a class when we read Szymborska's "Some Like Poetry". We took it apart, and wrote our own poems following the same idea and pattern. One student looked at me and said:

"But this doesn't have anything to do with Humanities!"

I remember being worried about this. Why could poetry not express the questions taught in Humanities? So I brought this small collection to class, and we read Szymborska's poem from 1956, titled "Two Monkeys by Brueghel":

I keep dreaming of my graduation exam:
in a window sit two chained monkeys,
beyond the window floats the sky,
and the sea splashes.

I am taking an exam on the history of mankind:
I stammer and flounder.

One monkey, eyes fixed upon me, listens ironically,
the other seems to be dozing--
and when silence follows a question,
he prompts me
with a soft jingling of the chain.

After looking at Breughel's sad and beautiful painting, talking about the situation in Szymborska's home country in 1956, and analysing the different attitudes the two monkeys display, we all sat quiet for a moment, taking in the message from all those different perspectives.

We realised that it was easy to identify with the sarcastic monkey who was staring at the world, thinking it was not worth the effort to care. But all agreed that the other one, seemingly dozing, but then gently jingling his chain, loved mankind more, and had secret hopes for a different future. Otherwise he would not help out!

Ever since then, when I try to find my way through the maze of contemporary politics, I imagine being like the monkey prompting students with that soft jingling of the chain, reminding them of the course of history, that we are studying in the hope of one day making this world a better place. We cannot get rid of the chains of the past, but we can be better at passing the exam of the history of mankind in the future. And by passing that exam, we are less likely to repeat mistakes.

I can't imagine anything more powerful than the combination of Breughel's art and Szymborska's verse to make the chain of history come alive. The only other poet I have experienced in the same way is her fellow Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney, whose Human Chain left a similar mark on me. When history is made tangible through the medium of poetry, it gets under your skin. Through its language and art it reaches you on an emotional level and enhances the factual, historical knowledge. From year to year, I have expanded the integration of poetry into my history units, and there is no end to the possibilities, once the initial hesitancy to "mix English and Humanities" is overcome. The chain is also a link. Heaney taught me that!

The way Szymborska's short, prosaic poems analyse her time and place in history and yet remain part of a universal, human quest for truth is simply breath-taking.

Love it! I'll jingle the chain to remind you all of this gem!

[PGR Nair · Rating 5 out of 5]

WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA: MOZART OF POETRY

Bestowing Nobel Prize for literature on relatively unknown poets has some merits. I must confess that I was totally unaware of the Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska poet till she won the Nobel Prize in 1996. Szymborska received the Nobel Prize in Literature “for poetry that with ironic precision allows the historical and biological context to come to light in fragments of human reality,” according to Nobel prize citation. Having read almost all her collections of poetry and the lovely prose piece Nonrequired Reading, I can say without exaggeration that she deserves to be called ‘Mozart of poetry’ considering her wealth of inspiration and the veritable ease with which words fall in place in her poetry.

Wislawa is a miracle in the world of poetry- a serious poet who commanded amazing popularity in her native land as the most representative Polish poet of last century. She is also one of the most accessible of all poets I have read and therefore one of my all-time favorites. Her poems carry that rare fusion of gravity, charming inventiveness, prodigal imagination and stupendous technical dexterity. She is someone who finds extraordinary in the ordinary and possesses that rare ability to transform insignificant and inconsequential things into sublime. She writes of the diversity, plenitude, and richness of the world, taking delight in observing and naming its phenomena. Culture, history, foibles of humanity and the beauty and bounty of natural world are some of the commonly encountered themes in her poetry. She looks on everything with wonder, astonishment, and amusement, but almost never with despair. Her poems sparkle with generous dose of irony and self-effacing humor. May be noting her shy nature and subdued voice in poetry that Czeslaw Milosz, the Polish-born poet who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1980, said of her- As a person and in her poetry, she is very attenuated. It is just a whisper.

View with a grain of sand is her best collection of poems, astutely translated by the famous Polish translator pair Clare Cavanagh and the poet Stanislaw Baranczak (who unfortunately passed away in December 2014) . Their combined skills in language and imagination have a synergetic effect resulting in felicitous translation of Wislawa’s poetry.

Let me begin illustrating the beauty and greatness of her poetry by citing my favorite poem in this collection. The poem is essentially about an offended cat when the owner dies and how this absence of the master affects the cat staying in the apartment.

CAT IN AN EMPTY APARTMENT

Die—you can't do that to a cat.
Since what can a cat do
in an empty apartment?
Climb the walls?
Rub up against the furniture?
Nothing seems different here,
but nothing is the same.
Nothing has been moved,
but there's more space.
And at nighttime no lamps are lit.

Footsteps on the staircase,
but they're new ones.
The hand that puts fish on the saucer
has changed, too.

Something doesn't start
at its usual time.
Something doesn't happen
as it should.
Someone was always, always here,
then suddenly disappeared
and stubbornly stays disappeared.

Every closet has been examined.
Every shelf has been explored.
Excavations under the carpet turned up nothing.
A commandment was even broken,
papers scattered everywhere.
What remains to be done.
Just sleep and wait.

Just wait till he turns up,
just let him show his face.
Will he ever get a lesson
on what not to do to a cat.
Sidle toward him
as if unwilling
and ever so slow
on visibly offended paws,
and no leaps or squeals at least to start.

How beautifully the increase in ‘space’ and ‘emptiness’ is perceived sensitively by the cat when the master "stubbornly stays disappeared"! The lamentation reserved for humans has been permitted to a cat. But the cat cannot articulate its feelings, nor can it hold a dialogue with the dead, or even less, ask questions about them and that explains the absence of "I" in the musings of the cat. The cat is not even aware of the death and its rituals. It is only aware of the sudden emptiness. This is a heartbreaking poem, to say the least.

Moving away from such a somber poem, let us consider the brilliant poem Birthday which is virtually a rhapsody of all poetic pyrotechnics. Birthday laments humans' limited capacity to take in the abundance and beauty of nature, given the brevity of human existence when measured against the vastness of cosmic time. there cannot be a more beautiful poem about the bewilderments of the world than this one.

BIRTHDAY

So much world all at once – how it rustles and bustles!
Moraines and morays and morasses and mussels,
the flame, the flamingo, the flounder, the feather –
how to line them all up, how to put them together?
All the thickets and crickets and creepers and creeks!
The beeches and leeches alone could take weeks.
Chinchillas, gorillas, and sarsaparillas –
Thanks do much, but all this excess of kindness could kill us.
Where’s the jar for this burgeoning burdock, brooks’ babble,
rooks’ squabble, snakes’ squiggle, abundance, and trouble?
How to plug up the gold mines and pin down the fox,
How to cope with the lynx, bobolinks, streptococs!
Take dioxide: a lightweight, but mighty in deeds:
what about octopodes, what about centipedes?
I could look into prices, but don’t have the nerve:
These are products I just can’t afford, don’t deserve.
Isn’t sunset a little too much for two eyes
that, who knows, may not open to see the sun rise?
I am just passing through, it’s a five-minute stop.
I won’t catch what is distant: what’s too close, I’ll mix up.
While trying to plumb what the void's inner sense is,
I'm bound to pass by all these poppies and pansies.
What a loss when you think how much effort was spent
perfecting this petal, this pistil, this scent
for the one-time appearance, which is all they're allowed,
so aloofly precise and so fragilely proud.


More than half of the poem is sculpted as a fun poem with its very interesting comic meter and rhythm and you wonder what it is all about till the very end. And you are visibly moved when you finish it. Birthday is so full of exuberance, so full of the gifts of God's bounty, so full of happy gaiety, so full of marvel, that it is natural for the poem to be a hearty outburst in its lyrical note and the alliterative use of language. One picture after another comes gushing forth in a stream of unrestrained thoughts. The birthday is not of one individual but the series of collective births that take place on the earth - "so much world all at once!”. The reader feels likes blurting out in exclamation-What a tremendously hectic schedule for this 5 minutes called life!

Let us look at another one that shows her wit, keen observation and inventiveness. The whole poem is fully made up of a series of phrases snatched from the conversations that take place among the attendees of a funeral. The initial conversation will of course be about the death of the person and the speculations on the causative factors.

from FUNERAL

"so suddenly, who could have seen it coming"
"stress and smoking, I kept telling him"
"not bad, thanks, and you"
"these flowers need to be unwrapped"
"his brother's heart gave out, too, it runs in the family"
"I'd never know you in the beard"
"he was asking for it, always mixed up in something"

But life shortly takes over and the lines have more and more to do with the survivors' quite undramatic, not to say banal, everyday lives and worries which may range from cricket or football to politics, stock market , you name it.

"you were smart, you brought the only umbrella" […]
“Of course, he was right , but that’s no excuse”
"two egg yolks and a tablespoon of sugar"
"none of his business, what was in it for him"
"only in blue and just small sizes" […]
"give my best to the widow, I've got to run" […]
"give me a call"
"which bus goes downtown"
"I'm going this way"
"we're not"

Szymborska is an ironist. But in her work, irony becomes playful, almost whimsical. She thinks of the poet as an acrobat who moves, as she puts it, with "laborious ease, with patient agility, with calculated inspiration." Szymborska's poems generally focus on everyday subjects or situations, and her tone stays firmly in the middle ground. She doesn't rant; she calmly assesses. She's a poet of dry-eyed, athletic precision: an acrobat, as she says, not a powerlifter. Let me illustrate it with another lovely poem in this collection that is fun to read.

UNDER ONE SMALL STAR

My apologies to chance for calling it necessity.
My apologies to necessity if I’m mistaken, after all.
Please, don’t be angry, happiness that I take you as my due.
May my dead be patient with the way my memories fade.
My apologies to time for all the world I overlook each second.
My apologies to past loves for thinking that the latest is the first.
Forgive me, distant wars, for bringing flowers home.
Forgive me, open wounds, for pricking my finger.
I apologize for my record of minuets to those who cry from the depths.
I apologize to those who wait in railway stations for being asleep today at five a.m.
Pardon me, hounded hope, for laughing from time to time.
Pardon me, deserts, that I don’t rush to you bearing a spoonful of water.
And you, falcon, unchanging year after year, always in the same cage,
your gaze always fixed on the same point in space,
forgive me, even if it turns out you were stuffed.
My apologies to the felled tree for the table’s four legs.
My apologies to great questions for small answers.
Truth, please don’t pay me much attention.
Dignity, please be magnanimous.
Bear with me, O mystery of existence, as I pluck the occasional thread from your train.
Soul, don’t take offense that I’ve only got you now and then.
My apologies to everything that I can’t be everywhere at once.
My apologies to everyone that I can’t be each woman and each man.
I know I won’t be justified as long as I live,
since I myself stand in my own way.
Don’t bear me ill will, speech, that I borrow weighty words,
then labor heavily so that they may seem light.

As the poem progresses the speaker keeps shifting from one category to another. She begs forgiveness from inanimate objects and even concepts, then from places and from group of people-everything is anthropomorphized. She herself feels unequal to the world’s sufferings and fears that by narrowing her focus on the world to make it manageable, she has trivialized it. But all viewpoints are incomplete, all efforts inadequate. We see the lyrical driving the logical in this poem. The loveliness of the words is staunchly supported by their meaning. Beauty alone is laudable but beauty combined with truth make it dazzling. Aspects such as natural utilitarian desire, guilt and despair and uncommon insight tinged with humor mesh so well in this verse.

The poem’s conclusion itself is another poetic endorsement.

“Don’t bear me ill will, speech, that I borrow weighty words,
then labor heavily so that they may seem light.”

The light she makes is a sort of moral illumination, shining back from details onto the inner lives of her readers. I think the author is showing (among other things) that she feels no guilt in finding joy in a world of pain.

Finally, the title "Under One Small Star," confesses that the poet comes from a place of relative insignificance and hers specific life, small but curiously infinite existence, has an importance of its own. She is aware of what she is. She is a part of it. She is a witness. She feels her impact and simultaneously, her lack of impact. We know how she feels. don't we?

I wish to conclude my illustration of poems with one endearing poem written in a different style but imbued with deep humanism and understanding , avoiding the traps of self-pity or grandiloquence .

IN PRAISE OF MY SISTER

My sister doesn’t write poems.
and it’s unlikely that she’ll suddenly start writing poems.
She takes after her mother, who didn’t write poems,
and also her father, who likewise didn’t write poems.
I feel safe beneath my sister’s roof:
my sister’s husband would rather die than write poems.
And, even though this is starting to sound as repetitive as
Peter Piper,
the truth is, none of my relatives write poems.

My sister’s desk drawers don’t hold old poems,
and her handbag doesn’t hold new ones,
When my sister asks me over for lunch,
I know she doesn’t want to read me her poems.
Her soups are delicious without ulterior motives.
Her coffee doesn’t spill on manuscripts.

There are many families in which nobody writes poems,
but once it starts up it’s hard to quarantine.
Sometimes poetry cascades down through the generations,
creating fatal whirlpools where family love may founder.

My sister has tackled oral prose with some success.
but her entire written opus consists of postcards from
vacations
whose text is only the same promise every year:
when she gets back, she’ll have
so much
much
much to tell.

Perhaps the last words on her poetry could be her own typical personalized and ironic comment on life:

Life, however long, will always be short.
Too short for anything to be added.
(from Our Ancestor’s short lives)

Wislawa Szymborska is a poet who steals the hearts of all those who love poetry. Her radiant optimism , conversational and playful approach to poetry, effortless transformation of weighty into weightless, celebration of joy of existence, unpretentious meditations on life and death , alacrity to meld beings and non-beings into the cosmic fabric and above all the universal appeal of her poems are what makes her one of the most endearing poets of all ages.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

My apologies to time for all the world I overlook each
second.

When I'm half asleep, I'm awakened by poetry, this form which gives me life, gives me meaning, in only a few words. When I want to see lucidity, to feel the fabric of a thought, poetry aids me. And when I really think about it, poetry is the art form that first gave me words--simple lyricism-- when, as a kid, I thumbed through hymnals I was supposed to carefully stack for my mother's singing group.

Forgive me, distant wars, for bringing flowers home.

Tonight, I revisit verse through Szymborska, she whose poem, "Under One Small Star," I've discussed with my students. The simple rhetorical strategy her verse employs, this easy flow and sensual rhythm of words, reaches a reader where she is, and immediately dissects each unspoken thought, seemingly suggesting a fix for each undefined idea.

We call it a grain of sand,
but it calls itself neither grain nor sand.
It does just fine without a name,
whether general, particular,
permanent, passing,
incorrect, or apt. (From "View With a Grain of Sand.")

Refinement encapsulated. Serenity restored. Life exemplified.

Call it vague or enigmatic; call it strange or challenging; call it trickery. To me, poetry is meaning pulled neatly into lines. Szymborska's poems tend to drift from the mundane to the complex, yet never without layered examination of the world, or of self. This is a reread for me, but when I pulled the copy off my shelf and opened the pages, it spoke so tenderly, I had to write this review.

Lying in wait, set to pounce on the blank page,
are letters up to no good,
clutches of clauses so subordinate
they'll never let her get away. (From "The Joy of Writing")

[Darwin8u · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Don't bear me ill will, speech, that I borrow weighty words,
then labor heavily so that they may seem light."
-- Wisława Szymborska, View With a Grain of Sand



Such a great overview of Szymorska's poetry. Once in Hungary I watched a guy ride two horses at full gallop while standing on their backs. Reading Szymorska reminds me of that. I grasp the technicals of what she is doing. I understand that nothing she writes in either style or practice actually defies the ACTUAL physics of writing, but something about her finished poems still seem magical and beyond reach. Her poems are like spiderwebs that hold up planets. Anyway, I'll put the hyperbole in my pocket now and just say I loved the book.

[Weinz · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this episode RC (Random Co-worker) will be played by Stifler (which is how men sound in my head when I know they are complete morons). Stifler will be replacing blond bimbette #3(which is how I categorize idiot girls I come in contact with) from last week's episode where she tried to explain why she loved "Daisy of Love".

RC: You don't have a TV?!

M: No

RC: I can't believe you don't have a TV!

M: *heavy sigh*

RC: Where do you watch your shows?

M: I don't

RC: Where do you watch movies?!

M: I have computers

RC: I don't know what I would do without a TV! That's all I do!

M: *trying hard not to roll eyes condescendingly*

RC: What do you DO?!!?

M: I read

RC: You READ?!

M: Yes.

and then with nothing more to add to the conversation RC proceeds to move on to more tabloid-knowledgeable friends or painfully begins to explain at great length all the things I'm missing out on.

Next time when faced with "the question" I will have a better answer. This book is why I don't have a TV. Sitting in my favorite chair and reading these poems made me laugh, made me cry and made me giggle knowingly. These poems were fun, insightful and poignant. Her wit only added to the compelling messages her poems held. Loved every single one.

[Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much of what we lose in translation is the art of mystification. Some works circumvent with footnotes, end notes, even an odd completely separate 'guide' and more commonly hashed around Wiki pages for purposes of filling in the much voiding blank, but there's still the matter of whether you're a native speaker of the translated from, the translated to, or neither. Reading my one-trick-pony English translated from Polish, I can't latch on to a rhyme, a particular beat of metaphor, a singular refrain of vowelized and consonated communication for purposes of distraction. What I have is the translator's sense of rhyme, the translator's sense of metaphor, the translator's sense of communication, all boiling down to a crucible of meaning. True, this work has two for hopefully more effective tag team, and I would like to think that somewhere along the line Szymborska herself was consulted (this was published the year before she won the Nobel for Lit, but from what I've heard she was big enough in her home country for prestige's sake), but the fact of the matter is that I loved and loved until the moment I didn't. It's instances like those that make me wish I could comprehend the far more contextualized original.

This desire doesn't happen often, mind you. I've read far too many critiques that go along the lines of "Well the bigotry's unfortunate and the forcing the reader to empathize with sadistic pigs is a shame but you gotta admit the prose is a beaut" to hold language supreme over all else. It'd be different if linguists in my particular Anglo side of the world didn't feel the need to shit all over anything that wasn't "proper", inheriting their eugenics sentiment (the role of a biologist is to map out, not to pick and choose) from a long line of misogynistic, classist, and racist enforcement of The English that is The Proper and The Absolute, but there you go. What a relief, then, Szymborska's

I believe in the refusal to take part.
I believe in the ruined career.
I believe in the wasted years of work.
I believe in the secret taken to the grave.

, a parcel taken from her "Discovery" that I will cradle to my tomb. What a shame, then, that this inherent morality is so glazed over later on that it never resurfaces again. Political, perhaps, but the Nobel Prize is a very political thing, which language is used and read and translate is a very political thing, and morality, in these days where it's your money or your life, is you tell me.

The interesting thing about reading an anthology with the decades of successive works clearly labeled is how implicitly it draws temporal psychology and personal development into the mix. It makes the appeal of bibilo-completionism more understandable, for better than an outsider bio or a self-corrected autobio is the development of the creative work in response to the holism of stimuli. This collection of poems may span from 1957 to 1993, but all the poems of my preference are pre '76, the death knell of my uncritical enjoyment sounding somewhere in the decade after. What, I must wonder, gives? Cause the transition from chain-yourself-to-the-gates-of-a-nuclear-test-site mentality to the privileged fairyland of

Meanwhile, people perished,
animals died,
houses burned,
and the fields ran wild
just as in times immemorial
and less political.

is a dramatic one.

It's not only my radical aka "from the root" leanings being miffed, mind you. Poems previous to "Discovery" run along the lines of

[...]

There are not enough mouths to utter
all your fleeting names, O water.

I would have to name you in every tongue,
pronouncing all the vowels at once

while also keeping silent—for the sake of the lake
that still goes unnamed

and doesn't exist on this earth, just as the star
reflected in it is not in the sky.

[...]

and the delightful metafiction of "The Joy of Writing", a delicate and powerful probing that is never matched by the complacency of later works. The titular piece comes close, but there is far more a feeling of satisfied definition than the awe in all of its forms I am ever in search of when it comes to the written word. Disappointing, yes, but just as there is a diving line between what makes a favorite work and what denotes a favorite author, far more rare than the appealing author is the segment that happens to be of a particular work that happens to be of a particular work that happens to circumscribe a portion of my soul. It makes the evaluation of "worth my time" a difficult one, I'll tell you that much.

So. Did I like these? Yes. Indeed, I would recommend that parents read them to their children, as the interest in art, science, and the boundaries of existence and its end is the sort too strong to ever be "grown out of". In light of that, the whole of my less than enamored state may be encompassed by the fact that I am no longer a child. My refusal to take part may be appeased in future times of unknown compensation, but not now.

[Viv JM · Rating 4 out of 5]

I chose this collection for the Book Riot Read Harder Challenge task: "Read a collection of poetry in translation on a theme other than love". It contains poetry from various collections of Szymborska, spanning the years of 1957 and 1993. I was amazed that this poetry was translated, as it reads as if it were first written in English. It was interesting to see how the poet developed over the years, and how her themes became more serious - a lot of the later poems are related to death or war. Having said that, there were plenty of amusing and ironic poems here too.

This edition contains no biographical information about the author and I do think it would have been nice to have that together with the poetry but, all in all, I would recommend this poetry collection, especially for those completing the Book Riot challenge and who maybe don't read that much poetry (like me!)

[Danielle DeTiberus · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the poem I would like to be read at my funeral. I read it for the first time on a plane to NY. I was so moved that I turned (with tears in my eyes, mind you) to the man sitting next to me and asked him to read it. HA! He must have thought I was an absolute nut. But he read it and he liked it...so thanks Wislawa!


Birthday

So much world all at once – how it rustles and bustles!
Moraines and morays and morasses and mussels,
The flame, the flamingo, the flounder, the feather –
How to line them all up, how to put them together?
All the tickets and crickets and creepers and creeks!
The beeches and leeches alone could take weeks.
Chinchillas, gorillas, and sarsaparillas –
Thanks so much, but this excess of kindness could kill us.
Where’s the jar for this burgeoning burdock, brooks’ babble,
Rooks’ squabble, snakes’ quiggle, abundance, and trouble?
How to plug up the gold mines and pin down the fox,
How to cope with the linx, bobolinks, streptococs!
Take dioxide: a lightweight, but mighty in deeds:
What about octopodes, what about centipedes?
I could look into prices, but don’t have the nerve:
These are products I just can’t afford, don’t deserve.
Isn’t sunset a little too much for two eyes
That, who knows, may not open to see the sun rise?
I am just passing through, it’s a five-minute stop.
I won’t catch what is distant: what’s too close, I’ll mix up.
While trying to plumb what the void's inner sense is,
I'm bound to pass by all these poppies and pansies.
What a loss when you think how much effort was spent
perfecting this petal, this pistil, this scent
for the one-time appearance, which is all they're allowed,
so aloofly precise and so fragilely proud.

[Flo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nothing Twice

Nothing can ever happen twice.
In consequence, the sorry fact is
that we arrive here improvised
and leave without the chance to practice.

Even if there is no one dumber,
if you're the planet's biggest dunce,
you can't repeat the class in summer:
this course is only offered once.

No day copies yesterday,
no two nights will teach what bliss is
in precisely the same way,
with precisely the same kisses.

One day, perhaps some idle tongue
mentions your name by accident:
I feel as if a rose were flung
into the room, all hue and scent.

The next day, though you're here with me,
I can't help looking at the clock:
A rose? A rose? What could that be?
Is it a flower or a rock?

Why do we treat the fleeting day
with so much needless fear and sorrow?
It's in its nature not to stay:
Today is always gone tomorrow.

With smiles and kisses, we prefer
to seek accord beneath our star,
although we're different (we concur)
just as two drops of water are.

from Calling out to Yeti (1957)


July 20, 2021

[Alma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Agradecimento

Devo imenso
aos que não amo.

O alívio com que aceito
eles estarem mais próximos de outras pessoas.

O alívio de não ser eu
o lobo dos seus cordeiros.

A minha paz com eles,
com eles a minha liberdade,
e isto não o pode dar o amor
nem o consegue tirar.

Não espero por eles
entre porta e janela.
Quase tão calma
como um relógio de sol,
entendo
o que o amor não entende,
desculpo
o que o amor jamais desculparia.

Entre carta e encontro
não passa a eternidade,
mas simplesmente uns dias ou semanas.

As viagens com eles são conseguidas,
os concertos escutados,
as catedrais visitadas,
as paisagens nítidas.

E quando nos separam
sete rios e montanhas,
são rios e montanhas
bem conhecidos dos mapas.

É mérito deles
que eu viva em três dimensões,
num espaço não lírico e não retórico
com um horizonte real porque movente.

Eles próprios ignoram
quanto trazem nas mãos vazias.

«Nada lhes devo» -
diria o amor
a este tema aberto.


As três mais estranhas palavras

Quando pronuncio a palavra Futuro,
a primeira sílaba parte já para o passado.

Quando pronuncio a palavra Silêncio,
aniquilo-o.

Quando pronuncio a palavra Nada
crio algo sem cabimento em nenhum não-ser

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wislawa Szymborska's widely diverse poetry makes me think and feel and sometimes even takes my breath away.

Favorites:

Coloratura - first lines: "Poised beneath the twig-wigged tree, she spills her sparkling vocal powder:"

Landscape - "In the old master's landscape, the trees have roots beneath the oil paint, the path undoubtedly reaches its goal..."

Family Album - begins with: "No one in this family has ever died of love," which entices me to read on.

Born - "A new arrival from the body's depths. A voyager to Omega." The event of birth is profound, yet also commonplace.

Theatre Impressions - I love the wit and vibrancy of this poem

Birthday - the vocabulary!

Allegro Ma Non Troppo - "I tug at life by its leaf hem: will it stop for me, just once, momentarily forgetting to what end it runs and runs?"

Lot's Wife - "They say I looked back out of curiosity, but I could have had other reasons."

Warning - first line: "Don't take jesters into outer space,"

The Onion - a beautiful poem about a humble vegetable!

The Suicide's Room - profound, unexpected and thoughtful

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Szymborska was a Polish poet who won the Nobel Prize in 1996, and while these didn’t quite blow my mind the way some poetry does, there was much quiet wisdom here and I enjoyed almost all of them. This collection is diverse, and covers selections from 1957 to 1993.

She touched on the everyday, and appeared to enjoy wordplay. I appreciated the way she’d take a subject and stand it on its head, as in one of my favorites, “Lot’s Wife,” which begins:
They say I looked back out of curiosity,
but I could have had other reasons.
I looked back mourning my silver bowl.
Carelessly, while tying my sandal strap.
So I wouldn’t have to keep staring at the righteous nape
of my husband Lot’s neck.

Three other favorites can be found online:

“Nothing Twice” - the first one that grabbed me
https://poets.org/poem/nothing-twice

The poet contemplating her craft, in “Poetry Reading”
https://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/poet...

And the wise “On Death Without Exaggeration”
https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/on-de...

I thoroughly enjoyed my time with this poet, and understand why she won the prize.

[Raul · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's been two days since I finished reading these poems, and life is particularly difficult for me at the moment (nothing unsolvable or that I won't work through, hopefully, in due time) and I have little reading time let alone reviewing time, but this was wonderful reading that resonated with me during this period.

[Jonfaith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Since they'd never met before, they're sure
that there'd been nothing between them.
But what's the word from the streets, staircases, hallways--
perhaps they've passed by each other a million times?

My recent bouts with verse have been belabored, not in terms of complexity or allusion but because, so often, the stanzas were heavy. The weight of history and personal affectation gave each phrase a heft. Imagine how disoriented I was when encountering Szymborska. This collection nearly bursts with a wild-eyed wonder. There is a freshness to almost every observation. There is a youthful lightness which appears to almost float from one stanza to the next.

It shouldn't be assumed then that this collection is childish, not without first accepting a subtle weary edge. My favorite line is "My faith is strong, blind and without foundation." That disconnect creates an opening, a fissure of sighs where wonder goes to molt.

[Steven Godin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remember Wislawa Szymborska was for me a difficult poet to get into at first, and after reading this, my third book, she is now very much a rewarding one, and easily one of my favourite female poets. Her themes here vary, with some poems feeling light and almost humorous, whilst others were dark, deeper, and more challenging. Some of these poems I have come across before, but that didn't matter to me, as it was a pleasure to get to read them again.
Anyone who has a true love for poetry, simply has to read Szymborska. Some of her poems are as important as they are rich and beautiful. No wonder she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Fully deserved.

Favourite poems from this selection were -

Travel Elegy
Autotomy
The Century's Decline
Children of our Age
Plotting with the Dead
No Title Required
The End and the Beginning
Love at First Sight

[Rosa Ramôa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nuvens

Para descrever as nuvens
muito teria de apressar-me,
pois numa fracção de segundo
deixam de ser estas e começam a ser outras.

É sua propriedade
não se repetir
nas formas, tonalidades, poses e configurações.

Sem o peso de qualquer lembrança,
pairam sem dificuldade sobre os factos.

Mas nem testemunhá-los podem,
pois logo se dissipam em todas as direcções.

Comparada com as nuvens,
a vida afigura-se firme,
quase duradoura, eterna.

Perante as nuvens
até uma pedra parece nossa irmã,
na qual se confia,
mas elas, enfim, umas levianas primas afastadas.

As pessoas que existam, caso queiram,
e depois morram uma por uma,
as nuvens não têm nada a ver com
coisas
tão estranhas.

Sobre toda a tua vida
e sobre a minha, ainda não toda,
desfilam com pompa, como desfilavam.

Não têm obrigação de morrer connosco.
Não precisam do nosso olhar para navegar.


[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

These poems are SO readable. They are like mini-stories. The translation to English is deservedly award winning. Early poems are taken from 1957 while at the end of the book they derive from 1993.

Each poem differs from the next. Subjects like: Talk to a yeti. Girls growing up. A cold poet. Traveling. Ruben’s women (“O fatty dishes of love”). Bodybuilder. Water. Conversation w a stone. And this list is simply from the first 30 pages!

She takes a view in these poems as this objective observer that questions things I feel that even I myself would question, if I could just slow down and think as clearly as she does.

"The Century's Decline"
Too many things have happened
that weren't supposed to happen,
and what was supposed to come about
has not.
...
Stupidity isn't funny.
Wisdom isn't gay.
Hope
isn't that young girl anymore,
et cetera, alas.

I have far too many favorites in this library book. I have added it to my shopping wish-list so I can underline a personal copy properly. I had to pause after reading each of these poems to let it absorb into my body properly.

5* and added to my all-time-favorites shelf.

[Glire · Rating 4 out of 5]

2016 Reading Challenge #06: A book translated to english. [Leído en español]

"En el tercer planeta del sol
la conciencia limpia y tranquila
es síntoma primordial de animalidad."

QUE GENIA. Desde Walt Whitman no me encontraba a un poeta tan evidentemente inspirado por lo cotidiano. No por el amor, la felicidad, el dolor, la tristeza, la pasión o la muerte, sino por el conjunto de sus más pequeños y simples encantos: la perfección de una cebolla, la muerte de un escarabajo, el magnífico irrespeto fronterizo de la naturaleza, las nubes que son capaces tapar la luna, la omnipresencia de un único cielo, el grano de arena que recorre el mundo.

"Y helo aquí: es un estado indeporable,
el escarabajo muerto en el sendero resplandece bajo el sol.
El tiempo de una mirada basta para pensar en él:
no le ha ocurrido nada importante, parece.
Lo importante, dicen, es lo que nos atañe a nosotros.
La vida, pero solo nuestra, o la muerte, pero también sólo nuestra,
una muerte que así goza de su obligada primacía."

Una antología sorprendentemente bien lograda, que nos pasea por los mejores poemas de la Nobel, desde 1957 hasta 1993. Y digo sorprendente no porque esperara menos de Szymborska, si no porque a pesar de la numerosa cantidad de poemas (poco más de 100) su calidad no decae; una proesa difícil inclusive para los mejores (cof cof, Neruda y Borges, cof cof).

"Así, por obra del azar, soy y miro.
Una mariposa blanca aletea en el aire
con alas que sólo a ella pertenecen,
y una sombra sobrevuela mi mano,
la suya, no otra, no de cualquiera.

Ante hechos semejantes me abandona la certeza de que lo importante
es más importante que lo que no importa"

Un libro para leer despacio, porque cada poema es una invitación a cerrar sus páginas y maravillarte con los más comunes y ordinarios milagros que conforman esto que llamamos vida.

"Un milagro tan adicional como adicional es todo:
lo impensable
se puede pensar."

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

WATER

A drop of water fell on my hand,
drawn from the Ganges and the Nile,

from hoarfrost ascended to heaven off a seal's whiskers,
from jugs broken in the cities of Ys and Tyre.

On my index finger
the Caspian Sea isn't landlocked,

and the Pacific is the Rudawa's meek tributary,
that same stream that floated as a little cloud over Paris

in the year seven hundred and sixty-four
on the seventh of May at three a.m.

There are not enough mouths to utter
all your fleeting names, O water.

I would have to name you in every tongue
pronouncing all the vowels at once

while also keeping silent–for the sake of the lake that still goes unnamed

and doesn’t exist on this earth, just as the star
reflected in it is not in the sky.

Someone was drowning, someone dying was
calling out for you. Long ago and, yesterday.

You have saved houses from fire, you have carried off houses and trees, forests and towns alike.

You’ve been in christening fonts and courtesan’s baths.
In coffin and kisses.

Gnawing stone, feeding rainbows,
In the sweat and the dew of the pyramids and lilacs.

How light the raindrop's contents are.
How gently the world touches me.

Whenever wherever whatever has happened
Is written down on the waters of Babel.

[Cat .classics]

Não classifico poesia, mas esta senhora é, sem dúvida, uma das minhas poetas preferidas.
Talvez porque a sua poesia seja projetada para o exterior, ou então é o reflexo do que o exterior causa dentro de si. Cada poema é uma reflexão, uma memória, um testemunho, uma dedicatória, e não apenas palavras amontoadas que parecem retalhos de emoções. É uma poeta que traz a natureza, a história, o dia a dia para as suas palavras e lhe infla sentido e beleza.

[Yani · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finjan que las cinco estrellas son diez. Reseña pronto.

[Elizabeth Adams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes the world goes a little more silent, and so it was yesterday when I heard of the death of Wislawa Szymborska. In her 88 years she had only published 400 poems, saying that she wrote many more, but always re-read the previous day's work the next morning: "Many," she added dryly, "don't survive." So this was a poet who was not prolific, nor had she had fallen in love with the sound of her own voice. Instead, each poem said something that mattered, and therefore the silence today is multiplied.

My own attraction to Polish poetry began perhaps fifteen years ago, or even more, after I had gone on a two-year binge of reading Russian literature, ending up with Akhmatova and Mandelstam. From there, in my search for voices of survival, hope, and sustenance among intellectuals and artists during times of war, and what I perceived as both social decay and indifference to what was really happening, I moved to the post-WWII poets of Poland. I was mainly drawn to Zbigniew Herbert, Tadeusz Rozewicz, Czeslaw Milosz, and their younger colleague Adam Zagajewski: all poets who wrote beautiful poems about the darkness and the light.

In 1996, Szymborska won the Nobel Prize for Literature. I bought her book View with a Grain of Sand, but didn't particularly like it at first. Somewhere around that time, I had a conversation about these Polish poets with my friend Kingsley, who had been a headmaster in a NYC Episcopal school and was a great reader as well as a man of strong and considered opinions ."She seems so...ironic, and almost flip," I said. "There's a sort of black humor in her work, and I guess I'm more attracted to the lyricism of the others...you know, the apricots hanging from the tree, the memories of past loves, the beauty in spite of everything that's happened." K. , who was about thirty years older than I was, laughed and said, "Yes, but that's exactly what I like about Szymborska. She's unflinching, she doesn't paper over anything, yet there's a humor and irony in her writing. Just wait -- I think you'll come to appreciate her more."

He was right, and it didn't take long. So much happened in the next ten years, and it changed me. After seeing death several times over, after loss and grief, after watching my country change irreparably, after leaving my home and reconsidering most of my beliefs, I found that the way I had looked at the world before no longer served: it had been theory and not reality. I had become more skeptical and less idealistic; stronger but also more cognizant of human frailty; more aware of the beauty in everyday life and the poignancy of each moment. I had found that humor was a great ally in dealing with the worst of things, and also with helping others to cope, and that the absurd is never far from the most serious human endeavor, especially in the way we seem to refuse to learn anything from our own history.

When I returned to Szymborska, it was immediately clear to me that K. had been right. I often had her poetry on my bedside table, and always found something truthful that made me nod my head with both admiration for her, and determination for the next day. But her poetry was never harsh or unfeeling; quite the contrary. She simply refused to be sentimental, and faced things as they really were. Now I think I saw in her a particular kind of strength that was female, and with which I increasingly identified. The only words I can find to encapsulate Szymborska are "a soft toughness." You can see it in her face.

She hasn't talked a great deal about herself, but I liked this quote, from Szymborska's obituary in The Guardian:

"Everyone needs solitude, especially a person who is used to thinking about what she experiences. Solitude is very important in my work as a mode of inspiration, but isolation is not good in this respect. I am not writing poetry about isolation," she said, going on to wonder why anyone would want to interview her. "For the last few years my favourite phrase has been 'I don't know'. I've reached the age of self-knowledge, so I don't know anything. People who claim that they know something are responsible for most of the fuss in the world."

Yesterday, when I heard the news, it seemed ironic and coincidental that I had just taken down her book and quoted from it here two days before. But then again, perhaps it wasn't so odd, because, as I said, I re-read her poems often. It was Szymborska who I had planned to pick for Marly Youmans' "Lydian Stones" project - a choice that would probably seem too obvious now. But at the time, looking at the jacket photograph with her ever-present cigarette, I had wondered how she was doing, with no idea she was in the process of leaving the world.

Last night I read Szymborska again, trying to identify a favorite poem to copy here. There are too many, so it was impossible, but I'll settle on this one which is about a journey, and embodies the qualities I've tried to describe.



INTO THE ARK

An endless rain is just beginning.
Into the ark, for where else can you go:
you poems for a single voice,
private exultations,
unnecessary talents,
surplus curiosity,
short-range sorrows and fears,
eagerness to see things from all sides.

Rivers are swelling and bursting their banks.
Into the ark: all you chiaroscuros and halftones,
you details, ornaments, and whims,
silly exceptions,
forgotten signs,
countless shades of the color gray,
play for play's sake,
and tears of mirth.

As far as the eye can see, there's water
and a hazy horizon.
Into the ark: plans for the distant future,
joy in difference,
admiration for the better man,
choice not narrowed down to one of two,
outworn scruples,
time to think it over,
and the belief that all of this
will still come in handy some day.

For the sake of the children
that we still are,
fairy tales have happy endings.
That's the only finale that will do here, too.
The rain will stop,
the waves will subside,
the clouds will part
in the cleared-up sky,
and they'll be once more
what clouds overhead ought to be:
lofty and rather lighthearted
in their likeness to things
drying in the sun —
isles of bliss,
lambs,
cauliflowers,
diapers.

[Andrea Ladino · Rating 3 out of 5]

Conocí a Wislawa a través de Amor, la antología colectiva de poesía que leí hace bien poco. Uno de los poemas que más me cautivaron fue el de esta mujer de nombre impronunciable (para mí) así que decidí ir por más.

De esta colección destaco fervientemente La mujer de Lot, Conversaciones con una piedra y El flechazo.

---

Algo poco al azar

Yeti, abajo es miércoles,
hay abecedario y pan,
dos y dos son cuatro,
y la nieve se funde.
Hay una manzana roja
partida en cuatro.
Yeti, entre nosotros
no sólo existe el crimen.
Yeti, no todas las palabras
condenan a muerte

---

Ningún día se repite,
ni dos noches son iguales
ni dos besos parecidos,
ni dos citas similares.

---

Todo es mío y nada me pertenece,
nada pertenece a la memoria,
todo es mío mientras lo contemplo

---

Somos sumamente corteses el uno con el otro
decimos: qué agradable encontrarnos después de tantos años

---

Llamo a la puerta de una piedra.
—Soy yo, déjame entrar.
Quiero penetrar en tu interior,
echar un vistazo,
respirarte.

—Vete —dice la piedra—.
Estoy herméticamente cerrada.
Incluso hecha añicos,
sería añicos cerrados.
Incluso hecha polvo,
sería polvo cerrado

---

Alegría de escribir.
Poder de eternizar.
Venganza de una mano mortal.

---

Nadie en mi familia murió de amor.
Romances sí hubo, no cosa seria.
¿Tísicos Romeos? ¿Julietas con difteria?
No. Alcanzaron la vejez en flor.
¡Ni uno murió de cartas sin respuesta,
con letra por las lágrimas borrosa!

---

Mi no llegada a la ciudad de N.
se efectúa puntualmente.

Te lo he comunicado
por carta no enviada.

Has tenido tiempo
para no llegar a la hora prevista.

---

Mirad a los felices:
¡Si al menos se escondieran un poco,
si fingieran agobio para reconfortar a los amigos!
Escuchad cómo ríen: es una afrenta

---

Verdad, no te fijes demasiado en mí.
Seriedad, sé conmigo magnánima.
Resiste, misterio del ser, si deshilacho tu traje.
No me acuses, alma, de tenerte poco.

Sé que nada me justificará mientras viva,
porque yo misma soy mi propio obstáculo.
No te ofendas conmigo, lenguaje, por tomar en préstamo palabras patéticas
y esforzarme luego para que parezca

---

Mucho debo
a quienes no amo.

En paz estoy con ellos,
y en libertad,
dos cosas que el amor no puede dar
ni sabe tomar

---

De los innumerables insectos sólo mencionaré a la hormiga
que, entre el zapato izquierdo y el derecho del aduanero,
a la pregunta ¿de dónde y a dónde? no se molesta en dar respuesta.

---

Dicen que miré hacia atrás por curiosidad.
Pero, además de la curiosidad, pude tener otros motivos.
Miré hacia atrás apenada por mi escudilla de plata.
Por descuido, al atarme una sandalia.
Para dejar de ver la nuca justiciera
de mi esposo, Lot.
Por la súbita convicción de que si caía muerta
él ni siquiera se detendría.
Por desobediencia propia de mansos.
Aguzando el oído a las señales de la persecución.
Intrigada por el silencio, con la esperanza de que Dios hubiera cambiado de idea.

---

Con esperanza el mundo mira más que escucha.
Sonreír es el deber de los hombres de estado.
Con la sonrisa aseguran no perder en la lucha.

---

Creías que el ermitaño vivía en el desierto,
pero vive en una casita con jardín
en medio de un bosquecillo de abedules.

---

El bien y el mal.
Poco sabían de ambos y lo sabían todo:
cuando el mal triunfa, se esconde el bien;
cuando el bien se manifiesta, el mal aguarda al acecho.
Uno y otro son invencibles,
imposible desterrarlos más allá de donde hay retorno.
Por eso, no existe alegría sin una sombra de miedo,
y no hay desaliento sin un atisbo de esperanza.
La vida, por larga que sea, será siempre muy breve.
Demasiado breve para añadirle algo.

---

De nuevo y como siempre,
según lo dicho anteriormente,
no hay preguntas más apremiantes
que las preguntas ingenuas.

---

Quieras o no,
tus genes tienen un pasado político,
tu piel un matiz político
y tus ojos una visión política.

---

¿En qué circunstancias sueñas con los muertos?
¿Piensas en ellos antes de dormir?
¿Quién aparece primero?
¿Es siempre el mismo?
¿Nombre? ¿Apellido? ¿Cementerio? ¿Fecha de defunción?

---

Sea cual fuere el tiempo de una vida
el currículum debe ser breve.

---

La realidad exige
que también se diga:
la vida sigue.

---

Nada es regalo, todo es préstamo.
Estoy de deudas hasta el cuello.
Con mí misma deberé pagar
por mí misma,
dar la vida por mi vida.

---

Aceptamos morir,
pero no de cualquier manera.
Nos atraía el amor,
eso sí, pero el amor
que cumple sus promesas.

[Rick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply one of the world’s finest living poets. This collection came out right about when she won the Nobel Prize for literature and includes 100 poems that span her career from 1957 to 1993. My own preference is for her more recent work, a fine testimony for an artist’s continual improvement. The selections from her earliest work are interesting but those from 1976 on are more consistently compelling and memorable. She can write magic lines; some randomly nabbed examples: “There’s nothing more debauched than thinking.” “Time has passed like a courier with urgent news.” “…when evil triumphs, good goes into hiding; / when good is manifest, then evil lies low.” “The tapestry of circumstance is intricate and dense.” A serious poet, she has a sense of humor, as her poem “Warning” attests:
Don’t take jesters into outer space,
that’s my advice.

Fourteen lifeless planets,
a few comets, two stars.
By the time you take off for the third star,
your jesters will be out of humor.

The cosmos is what it is—
namely, perfect.
Your jesters will never forgive it.

Nothing will make them happy:
not time (too immemorial),
not beauty, (no flaws),
not gravity (no use for levity).
While others drop their jaws in awe,
the jesters will just yawn…

She can write poignant poems about suicide, torture, funerals, miracles, and an event-less day. About hatred: “They say it’s blind. Blind? / It has a sniper’s keen sight / and gazes unflinchingly at the future / as only it can.”

Her best work has the easy cadence of casual speech while deftly capturing the complex:
After every war
someone has to tidy up.
Things won’t pick
themselves up, after all.

Someone has to shove
the rubble to the roadsides
so the carts loaded with corpses
can get by.

Someone has to trudge
through sludge and ashes,
through the sofa springs,
the shards of glass,
the bloody rags.

…No sound bites, no photo opportunities,
and it takes years.
All the cameras have gone
to other wars.

The bridges need to be rebuilt,
the railroad stations, too.
Shirtsleeves will be rolled
to shreds.

…From time to time someone still must
dig up a rusted argument
from underneath a bush
and haul it off to the dump.

Those who knew
what this was all about
must make way for those
who know little.
And less than that.
And at last nothing less than nothing.

Someone has to lie there
in the grass that covers up
the causes and effects
with a cornstalk in his teeth,
gawking at clouds.

There are dozens of poems that you’d want to quote from, share with friends, maybe even memorize.

[sigurd · Rating 5 out of 5]

ci sono autori o autrici che quando piombano nella tua vita in questa c'è il caos. non hai tirato fuori i panni dalla lavatrice e sei costretto a rilavarli, non hai scongelato il pane in tempo e il microonde è da riparare, le uova sono scadute, hai dimenticato il prosciutto fuori dal frigo, le bollette sono scadute da un paio di mesi e non ricordi da quanto tempo ci sono quegli avvisi di giacenze, il bagnoschiuma è in cucina al posto del detersivo piatti e quest'ultimo nella doccia, i calzini sono spaiati, quelli non spaiati di un colore che non ti piacciono, la stampante non obbedisce ai tuoi ordini e, guarda caso, è finita la carta, vai a comprare la carta ma è finito il toner, vai a comprare il toner e tamponi un vecchio in una panda del 1920 che ti chiede i danni... questo è quando nella tua vita è il caos, ma poi... a un certo punto... lei... she...

Wislawa, how long are you intending to stay here in Italy?
Wislawa: [pause, smiles] Indefinitely.

http://youtu.be/kaXCUUqk8pk

[J.M. Hushour · Rating 5 out of 5]

I feel that poetry may be considered "wack" by anyone born after 1970, but, seriously, assholes, there is some good shit out there, e.g. this book. I know, I know, I know: where are the undead? where are the plastic explosions? where are the ersatz realities? Shove it all up your butt, Mugwumps! In an interview someone asked her why she didn't publish very frequently and the card replied, "I have a trash can in my home."

[Huy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tình cờ mua được cuốn này ở nhà sách Phương Nam, chỉ còn 1 quyển duy nhất và lập tức yêu thơ của Wislawa Szymborsk bởi sự giản dị nhưng đầy sức mạnh trong câu từ của bà, bà luôn nhấn mạnh sự vận hành của đời sống có lẽ không phải ngẫu nhiên như ta tưởng tượng hoặc có những dấu hiệu về sự đổi thay.
Một tập thơ xứng đáng để ta giở ra đọc lại nhiều lần

[Courtney Johnston · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have fallen head over heels for Wislawa Szymborska (and am even now able to spell her name without looking). 'View with a grain of sand' , translated by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh, brings together a handful of poems from each of a number of collections published between 1957 and 1993. The poems are remarkably consistent in tone and approach - Syzmbroska seems to have landed her mixture of playness and elegant skewering early, and maintained it. Her poems are both wide-ranging and narrowly focused; the intimacy of Syzmbroska's voice carries you through wry observations on love, the aftermath of war, loss, and joyful observations on the unending, unfolding world.

My favourite in the collection is 'Could Have' --

It could have happened.
It had to happen.
It happened earlier. Later.
Nearer. Farther off.
It happened, but not to you.

You were saved because you were the first.
You were saved because you were the last.
Alone. With others.
On the right. The left.
Because it was raining. Because of the shade.
Because the day was sunny.

You were in luck -- there was a forest.
You were in luck -- there were no trees.
You were in luck -- a rake, a hook, a beam, a brake,
A jamb, a turn, a quarter-inch, an instant . . .

So you're here? Still dizzy from
another dodge, close shave, reprieve?
One hole in the net and you slipped through?
I couldn't be more shocked or
speechless.
Listen,

how your heart pounds inside me.

The urgency, the belief mixed with disbelief, that piercing, thankful, visceral last line ...

The image of a world in a raindrop in 'Water' captures the simultaneous scope and intimacy of these poems for me --

A drop of water fell on my hand,
Blood-let from the Ganges and the Nile,

from the Ascension-day voyage off a seal’s whiskers to heaven,
from water out of the shattered pitchers in the cities of Ys and Tyre.

On my index finger
the Caspian Sea is open

and the Pacific meekly joins the Rudawa,
that same stream that floated as a little cloud over Paris

in the year seven hundred and sixty-four
on the seventh of May at three in the morning.

There are not enough mouths to utter
all your fleeting names, O water.

I would have to name you in all tongues,
pronouncing all the vowels at once

while also keeping silent–for the sake of the lake
that waits to be named

and doesn’t exist on this earth, just as the star
reflected in it is not in heaven.

Somebody drowned, someone dying was
crying out for you. It was long ago and it was yesterday.

You have saved houses from fire, you have carried off houses
as you did trees, forests as cities.

You’ve been in christening fonts and courtesan’s baths.
In kisses and coffins.

Gnawing stone, nourishing rainbows,
in the sweat and the dew of the pyramids, the lilacs.

How light is all this in the raindrop.
How gently the world touches me.

Whatever, whenever, wherever has happened
Is written down on the waters of Babel.

There's a touch of Cummings' word-acrobatics to 'Allegro Ma Non Troppo', and that opening stanza just slays me --

Life, you're beautiful (I say)
you just couldn't get more fecund,
more befrogged or nightingaily,
more anthillful or sproutspouting.

I'm trying to court life's favor,
to get into its good graces,
to anticipate its whims.
I'm always the first to bow,

always there where it can see me
with my humble, reverent face,
soaring on the wings of rapture,
falling under waves of wonder.

Oh how grassy is this hopper,
how this berry ripely rasps.
I would never have conceived it
if I weren't conceived myself!

Life (I say) I've no idea
what I could compare you to.
No one else can make a pine cone
and then make the pine cone's clone.

I praise your inventiveness,
bounty, sweep, exactitude,
sense of order – gifts that border
on witchcraft and wizardry.

I just don't want to upset you,
tease or anger, vex or rile.
For millennia, I've been trying
to appease you with my smile.

I tug at life by its leaf hem:
will it stop for me, just once,
momentarily forgetting
to what end it runs and runs?

This is how I feel about life right now - close to overwhelmed by its bounty, clinging to the crest of the wave.

I loved 'Pi' - again, that dancing tone;

The admirable number pi:
three point one four one.
All the following digits are also initial
five nine two because it never ends.
It can't be comprehended, six five three five, at a glance,
eight nine, by calculation,
seven nine, or imagination,
not even three two three eight by wit, that is, by comparison
four six to anything else
two six four three in the world.
The longest snake on earth calls it quits at about forty feet.
Likewise, snakes of myth and legend, though they may hold out a bit longer.
The pageant of digits comprising the number pi
doesn't stop at the page's edge.
It goes on across the table, through the air,
over a wall, a leaf, a bird's nest, clouds, straight into the sky,
through all the bottomless, bloated heavens.
Oh, how brief -- a mouse's tail, a pigtail -- is the tail of a comet!
How feeble the star's ray, bent by bumping up against space!
While here we have two three fifteen three hundred nineteen
my phone number your shirt size
the year nineteen hundred and seventy-three the sixth floor
the number of inhabitants sixty-five cents
hip measurement two fingers a charade, a code,
in which we find hail to thee, blithe spirit, bird thou never wert
alongside ladies and gentlemen, no cause for alarm,
as well as ,
but not the number pi, oh no, nothing doing.
it keeps right on with its rather remarkable five,
its uncommonly fine eight,
its far from final seven
nudging, always nudging a sluggish eternity
to continue.

(And I am fascinated by how other translations I have read change the tone)

...The caravan of digits that is pi
does not stop at the edge of the page,
but runs off the table and into the air,
over the wall, a leaf, a bird's nest, the clouds, straight into the sky,
through all the bloatedness and bottomlessness.

And finally, a work that is not in the collection, but which I found online, and can sympathise with so much: the effort to maintain normality, the saying of things and refusing to hear them, the hearing of things and refusing to say them - the saying and the hearing that you perform, but that never touches you ...

'Identification'

It’s good you came—she says.
You heard a plane crashed on Thursday?
Well so they came to see me
about it.
The story is he was on the passenger list.
So what, he might have changed his mind.
They gave me some pills so I wouldn’t fall apart.
Then they showed me I don’t know who.
All black, burned except one hand.
A scrap of shirt, a watch, a wedding ring.
I got furious, that can’t be him.
He wouldn’t do that to me, look like that.
The stores are bursting with those shirts.
The watch is just a regular old watch.
And our names on that ring,
they’re only the most ordinary names.
It’s good you came. Sit here beside me.
He really was supposed to get back Thursday.
But we’ve got so many Thursdays left this year.
I’ll put the kettle on for tea.
I’ll wash my hair, then what,
try to wake up from all this.
It’s good you came, since it was cold there,
and him just in some rubber sleeping bag,
him, I mean, you know, that unlucky man.
I’ll put the Thursday on, wash the tea,
since our names are completely ordinary

[Georgiana 1792 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Adoro Wislawa Szymborska e il suo contrapporre il quotidiano all'immutabile. Il tempo scandito dal granello di sabbia della clessidra, che è indifferente a ogni spazio e tempo. Eppure, l'essere vivente esiste, è esistito ed esisterà.
Non c'è vita
Che almeno per un attimo
Non sia stata immortale
(Sulla morte, senza esagerare)

Soprattutto nelle prime poesie, come Museo per esempio, ho pensato a Jane Austen e alla sua citazione What are men to rocks and mountains.
Mi ha molto colpito la poesia Elegia di viaggio:

Tutto è mio, niente mi appartiene,
nessuna proprietà per la memoria,
e mio finché guardo.

E la grandissima autoironia di Recensione di una poesia mai scritta

[Bibliobites Veronica]

After 15 years of homeschooling I’m finally starting to feel like I can appreciate poetry, versus just reading it because I knew I should, in the early years. I really enjoyed this collection, which spanned five different decades of the Polish poetess’ life. My favorites seemed to mostly be from the ones written in the 1970s; the ones on the later decades seemed a bit more…despairing? Maybe that’s too strong of a word. Anyway, this is an Ambleside Online year 12 poet, but if your student is like mine, doing year 11 as his final high school year, Szymborska and this collection specifically, is a good fit, I think.