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Talking to My Body
Anna Swir's poetry is featured in the best-selling anthologies Ten Poems to Set You Free and Risking Everything
Anna Swir (1909-1984) famously said “A poet should be as sensitive as an aching tooth.” Swir was one of Poland’s most distinguished poets, and she was open in her feminism and eroticism, with poetry that explored the life of the female body—from the agonizing depths of wartime to delirious sensual delight. The New York Times wrote that Swir's poetry pointed toward a "ferocious internal life."
A member of the Resistance during the Nazi occupation and a military nurse in a makeshift hospital during the Warsaw Uprising, Swir once waited an hour fully expecting to be executed. Affected deeply by her experience, she wrote a poetry which rejected the grand gestures of war in favor of a world cast in miniature, a world in which the body and individual survive.
Co-translated by Nobel Laureate Czeslaw Milosz and Leonard Nathan, with an introduction by Milosz, who writes: “What is the central theme of these poems? Answer: Flesh. Flesh in love and ecstasy, in pain, in terror, flesh afraid of loneliness, giving birth, resting, feeling the flow of time or reducing time to one instant. By such a clear delineation of her subject matter, Anna Swir achieves in her sensual, fierce poetry a nearly calligraphic neatness.”
Reviews:
“The poems delight in all things physical, painting a passionate picture of the soul as a reified, pulsating entity that argues with the body.”—San Francisco Review
“Talking to My Body is an extremely rewarding book... Her best poems are so original as to deliver that mild shock we've come to recognize as real poetry.”—Boston Book Review
Anna Swir (1909-1984) famously said “A poet should be as sensitive as an aching tooth.” Swir was one of Poland’s most distinguished poets, and she was open in her feminism and eroticism, with poetry that explored the life of the female body—from the agonizing depths of wartime to delirious sensual delight. The New York Times wrote that Swir's poetry pointed toward a "ferocious internal life."
A member of the Resistance during the Nazi occupation and a military nurse in a makeshift hospital during the Warsaw Uprising, Swir once waited an hour fully expecting to be executed. Affected deeply by her experience, she wrote a poetry which rejected the grand gestures of war in favor of a world cast in miniature, a world in which the body and individual survive.
Co-translated by Nobel Laureate Czeslaw Milosz and Leonard Nathan, with an introduction by Milosz, who writes: “What is the central theme of these poems? Answer: Flesh. Flesh in love and ecstasy, in pain, in terror, flesh afraid of loneliness, giving birth, resting, feeling the flow of time or reducing time to one instant. By such a clear delineation of her subject matter, Anna Swir achieves in her sensual, fierce poetry a nearly calligraphic neatness.”
Reviews:
“The poems delight in all things physical, painting a passionate picture of the soul as a reified, pulsating entity that argues with the body.”—San Francisco Review
“Talking to My Body is an extremely rewarding book... Her best poems are so original as to deliver that mild shock we've come to recognize as real poetry.”—Boston Book Review
140 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1996
About the author
Anna Świrszczyńska
69 books48 followersAnna Świrszczyńska (also known as Anna Swir) was a Polish poet whose works deal with themes including her experiences during World War II, motherhood, the female body, and sensuality.
Świrszczyńska was born in Warsaw and grew up in poverty as the daughter of an artist. She began publishing her poems in the 1930s. During the Nazi occupation of Poland she joined the Polish resistance movement in World War II and was a military nurse during the Warsaw Uprising. She wrote for underground publications and once waited 60 minutes to be executed. Czesław Miłosz writes of knowing her during this time and has translated a volume of her work. Her experiences during the war strongly influenced her poetry. In 1974 she published Building the Barricade, a volume which describes the suffering she witnessed and experienced during that time. She also writes frankly about the female body in various stages of life.
Świrszczyńska was born in Warsaw and grew up in poverty as the daughter of an artist. She began publishing her poems in the 1930s. During the Nazi occupation of Poland she joined the Polish resistance movement in World War II and was a military nurse during the Warsaw Uprising. She wrote for underground publications and once waited 60 minutes to be executed. Czesław Miłosz writes of knowing her during this time and has translated a volume of her work. Her experiences during the war strongly influenced her poetry. In 1974 she published Building the Barricade, a volume which describes the suffering she witnessed and experienced during that time. She also writes frankly about the female body in various stages of life.
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April 11, 2020
The body. A source of pleasure. A source of pain. Are we our body or is the body our perpetual companion for the better and the worse? Do body and self coincide? Questions which might rise more poignantly these days, in which one has to self-isolate the body, increasing bodily self-awareness.
Our feet are drunk
on our wide wandering
like bears with honey.
They walk slower and slower, humming
Satiation.
Let us sit under a tree, my dear,
we will fall asleep together
like a he-bear by a she-bear.
For the Polish poet Anna Swir ((Świrszczyńska) (1909-1984) body and self don’t overlap. The soul seeks communication with the body, the body smoothly evading the heaviness of the soul, cherishing its own freedom. Most of the poems in this collection touch on the relation between the self and the body, and between one’s own body and another body - which in the poems is often an erotic relation, seeking warmth, comfort and peace in each other’s arms, in a world that is devoid of the solace of religion, in which one is to die and one is subject to illness and aging.
In the introduction the poet Czesław Miłosz, who knew Anna Swir personally and translated the poems into English, captures the central theme of her poems as flesh: ‘Flesh in love-ecstasy, flesh in pain, flesh in terror, flesh afraid of loneliness, exuberant, running, lazy, flesh of a woman giving birth, resting, snoring, doing her morning calisthenics, feeling of time or reducing time to one instant’.
Happy as something unimportant
and free as a thing unimportant.
As something no one prizes
and which does not prize itself.
As something mocked by all
And which mocks at their mockery.
As laughter without serious reason.
As a yell able to outyell itself.
Happy as no matter what, as any no matter what.
Happy
as a dog’s tail.
In the first section Poems About My Father and My Mother Anna Swir reminisces her youth, living in Warsaw, her father a painter, a life in poverty. A second section, Wind, reflects on different stages in a woman’s life, maternity, paying visits to a resting home, the experience of terminal illness, birth, death, suffering. In the third section three women, Felicia, Antonia, Stephanie speak about their loves and feelings of friction, unease as well as blissful union.
The fourth section, Other poems comprises the titular core of the collection evoking how a woman experiences and perceives her body, before falling asleep, when running on the beach, doing manual labour (I am raking Hay), doing laundry, washing the kitchen floor, speaking to her body or to parts of it, warming herself in the sun and the light she harbours inside her, celebrating love at mature age (Swir was in her sixties when writing her poems on love and the body). The fifth and last section Poems About My friend sketches an ‘us’, a couple, speaking of togetherness in happiness but also in pain and anxiety, regrets of having hurt each other, carrying each other and each other’s pain.
Silence
flows into me and out of me
washing my past away.
I am pure already, waiting for you. Bring me
your silence.
They will doze off
nesting in each other’s arms,
our two silences.
The poems are short and intense and of a powerful simplicity, reflecting a very earthly view on the body and its parts and organs. While moments of loving togetherness might evoke tenderness in the poems addressing love, more often than not they end on a dissonant tone and in distance.
You make among the trees
a nest for our love.
But look at the flowers
You’ve crushed.
The book closes with an afterword consisting of an illuminating dialogue between Czesław Miłosz and Leonard Nathan(M considered Nathan a co-translator of this poetry collection as they had been working together on certain passages) on the poetry of Swir and how to position her in Polish poetic tradition. While the poems in the collection itself mostly focus on personal life, love and the body, in the afterword some of Swir’s war poetry, sprouting from her experiences as a nurse in military hospitals and the Warsaw uprising is highlighted and discussed, closing with a moving, serene poem, where she looks back on her life and takes leave in grace:
There is much strength in me. I can live,
can run, dance and sing.
All that is in me, but if necessary
I will go.
I trod a thousand paths in the sun and in snow,
I danced with my friend under the stars.
I saw love
in many human eyes,
I ate with delight
my slice of happiness.
Now I am lying in the surgery clinic in Krakow.
It stands by me.
Tomorrow
they will carve me.
Through the window the trees of May, beautiful like life,
And in me, humility, fear and peace.
Thank you so much, Caterina.
Our feet are drunk
on our wide wandering
like bears with honey.
They walk slower and slower, humming
Satiation.
Let us sit under a tree, my dear,
we will fall asleep together
like a he-bear by a she-bear.
For the Polish poet Anna Swir ((Świrszczyńska) (1909-1984) body and self don’t overlap. The soul seeks communication with the body, the body smoothly evading the heaviness of the soul, cherishing its own freedom. Most of the poems in this collection touch on the relation between the self and the body, and between one’s own body and another body - which in the poems is often an erotic relation, seeking warmth, comfort and peace in each other’s arms, in a world that is devoid of the solace of religion, in which one is to die and one is subject to illness and aging.
In the introduction the poet Czesław Miłosz, who knew Anna Swir personally and translated the poems into English, captures the central theme of her poems as flesh: ‘Flesh in love-ecstasy, flesh in pain, flesh in terror, flesh afraid of loneliness, exuberant, running, lazy, flesh of a woman giving birth, resting, snoring, doing her morning calisthenics, feeling of time or reducing time to one instant’.
Happy as something unimportant
and free as a thing unimportant.
As something no one prizes
and which does not prize itself.
As something mocked by all
And which mocks at their mockery.
As laughter without serious reason.
As a yell able to outyell itself.
Happy as no matter what, as any no matter what.
Happy
as a dog’s tail.
In the first section Poems About My Father and My Mother Anna Swir reminisces her youth, living in Warsaw, her father a painter, a life in poverty. A second section, Wind, reflects on different stages in a woman’s life, maternity, paying visits to a resting home, the experience of terminal illness, birth, death, suffering. In the third section three women, Felicia, Antonia, Stephanie speak about their loves and feelings of friction, unease as well as blissful union.
The fourth section, Other poems comprises the titular core of the collection evoking how a woman experiences and perceives her body, before falling asleep, when running on the beach, doing manual labour (I am raking Hay), doing laundry, washing the kitchen floor, speaking to her body or to parts of it, warming herself in the sun and the light she harbours inside her, celebrating love at mature age (Swir was in her sixties when writing her poems on love and the body). The fifth and last section Poems About My friend sketches an ‘us’, a couple, speaking of togetherness in happiness but also in pain and anxiety, regrets of having hurt each other, carrying each other and each other’s pain.
Silence
flows into me and out of me
washing my past away.
I am pure already, waiting for you. Bring me
your silence.
They will doze off
nesting in each other’s arms,
our two silences.
The poems are short and intense and of a powerful simplicity, reflecting a very earthly view on the body and its parts and organs. While moments of loving togetherness might evoke tenderness in the poems addressing love, more often than not they end on a dissonant tone and in distance.
You make among the trees
a nest for our love.
But look at the flowers
You’ve crushed.
The book closes with an afterword consisting of an illuminating dialogue between Czesław Miłosz and Leonard Nathan(M considered Nathan a co-translator of this poetry collection as they had been working together on certain passages) on the poetry of Swir and how to position her in Polish poetic tradition. While the poems in the collection itself mostly focus on personal life, love and the body, in the afterword some of Swir’s war poetry, sprouting from her experiences as a nurse in military hospitals and the Warsaw uprising is highlighted and discussed, closing with a moving, serene poem, where she looks back on her life and takes leave in grace:
There is much strength in me. I can live,
can run, dance and sing.
All that is in me, but if necessary
I will go.
I trod a thousand paths in the sun and in snow,
I danced with my friend under the stars.
I saw love
in many human eyes,
I ate with delight
my slice of happiness.
Now I am lying in the surgery clinic in Krakow.
It stands by me.
Tomorrow
they will carve me.
Through the window the trees of May, beautiful like life,
And in me, humility, fear and peace.
Thank you so much, Caterina.
January 18, 2019
This is poetry of rare purity and intensity, sensuous and spiritual. The body figures in almost every poem, in many different ways, sometimes as a topic per se, at other times as integral to living life -- from utter revulsion and a desire to be rid of it to the most exquisite, tearful joys of intimacy and acceptance. I love this book even more now than when I first read it many years ago.
Czeslaw Milosz called it a poetry of flesh, minimal like a drawing of the bodies of two lovers with background barely indicated. The body is central to my work as a visual artist, so I love that image. I’d also call it a poetry of what it’s like to be alive.
The selections span several of her books. It’s impossible to choose representative samples but here are a few. I love the first especially.
Thank You, My Fate
Great humility fills me,
great purity fills me,
I made love with my dear
as if I made love dying
as if I made love praying,
tears pour
over my arms and his arms.
I don't know whether this is joy
or grief, I don't understand
what I feel, I'm crying,
I'm crying, it's humility
as if I were already dead,
gratitude, I thank you, my fate,
I am unworthy, how beautiful
my life.
Another favorite, so minimal and perfect, describing something I've felt so many times:
I Sleep in Blue Pajamas
I sleep in blue pajamas,
at my right my child sleeps.
I have never cried,
I will never die.
I sleep in blue pajamas,
at my left my man sleeps.
I have never knocked my head against the wall,
I have never screamed out of fear.
How large this bed is
if it had room enough
for such happiness.
And here are a few more, trying to be somewhat representative of the poems in this volume (which doesn't include her war poetry):
From To Be a Woman (1972)
A Woman Talks to Her Thigh
It is only thanks to your good looks
I can take part
in the rites of love.
Mystical ecstasies
treasons delightful
as crimson lipstick,
a perverse rococo
of psychological involutions,
sweetness of carnal longings
that take your breath,
pits of despair
sinking to the very bottom of the world:
all this I owe to you.
How tenderly every day I should
lash you with a whip of cold water,
if you alone allow me to possess
beauty and wisdom
irreplaceable.
The souls of my lovers
open to me in a moment of love
and I have them in my dominion.
I look as does a sculptor
on his work
at their faces snapped shut with eyelids,
martyred by ecstasy,
made dense by happiness.
I read as does an angel
thoughts in their skulls,
I feel in my hand
a beating human heart,
I listen to the words
which are whispered by one human to another
in the frankest moments of one’s life.
I enter their souls,
I wander
by a road of delight or horror
to lands as inconceivable
as the bottoms of the oceans.
Later on, heavy with treasures
I come slowly
to myself.
O, many riches
many precious truths
growing immense in a metaphysical echo,
many initiations
delicate and startling
I owe to you, my thigh.
The most exquisite refinement of my soul
would not give me any of those treasures
if not for the clear, smooth charm
of an amoral little animal.
She Does Not Remember
She was an evil stepmother.
In her old age she is slowly dying
in an empty hovel.
She shudders
like a wad of burning paper.
She does not remember that she was evil.
But she knows
that she feels cold.
The Greatest Love
She is sixty. She lives
the greatest love of her life.
She walks arm in arm with her dear one,
her hair streams in the wind.
Her dear one says:
“You have hair like pearls.”
Her children say:
“Old fool.”
From Wind (1970)
I give birth to life.
It went out of my entrails
and asks for the sacrifice of my life
as does an Aztec deity,
I lean over a little puppet,
we look at each other
with four eyes.
“You are not going to defeat me,” I say
“I won’t be an egg which you would crack
in a hurry for the world,
a footbridge that you would take on the way to your life.
I will defend myself.”
I lean over a little puppet.
I notice
a tiny movement of a tiny finger
which a little while ago was still in me,
in which under a thin skin,
my own blood flows.
And suddenly I am flooded
by a high, luminous wave
of humility.
Powerless, I drown.
From Poems About My Father and Mother (Polish title: Suffering and Joy, published posthumously, 1985):
I Wash the Shirt
For the last time I wash the shirt
of my father who died.
The shirt smells of sweat. I remember
that sweat from my childhood,
so many years
I washed his shirts and underwear,
I dried them
at an iron stove in the workshop,
he would put them on unironed.
From among all the bodies in the world,
animal, human,
only one exuded that sweat.
I breathe it in
for the last time. Washing this shirt
I destroy it
forever.
Now
only paintings survive him
which smell of oils.
In a postscript Czeslaw Milosz said: “She is now regarded as a truly eminent poet of metaphysical orientation . . .obsessed with the perishability of the flesh. . . Opening myself to her verses, I have been more and more conquered by her extraordinary, powerful, exuberant and joyous personality. Reading her was like discovering in someone who is close to us an unsuspected, strange and admirable being. Perhaps I was even falling in love with her. What I found particularly attractive in her was her calm in accepting reality, whether it brought bliss or suffering. . . . To have met such a person through her poems has inclined me to faith and optimism.”
Only having met her through her poetry, I feel the same.
Czeslaw Milosz called it a poetry of flesh, minimal like a drawing of the bodies of two lovers with background barely indicated. The body is central to my work as a visual artist, so I love that image. I’d also call it a poetry of what it’s like to be alive.
The selections span several of her books. It’s impossible to choose representative samples but here are a few. I love the first especially.
Thank You, My Fate
Great humility fills me,
great purity fills me,
I made love with my dear
as if I made love dying
as if I made love praying,
tears pour
over my arms and his arms.
I don't know whether this is joy
or grief, I don't understand
what I feel, I'm crying,
I'm crying, it's humility
as if I were already dead,
gratitude, I thank you, my fate,
I am unworthy, how beautiful
my life.
Another favorite, so minimal and perfect, describing something I've felt so many times:
I Sleep in Blue Pajamas
I sleep in blue pajamas,
at my right my child sleeps.
I have never cried,
I will never die.
I sleep in blue pajamas,
at my left my man sleeps.
I have never knocked my head against the wall,
I have never screamed out of fear.
How large this bed is
if it had room enough
for such happiness.
And here are a few more, trying to be somewhat representative of the poems in this volume (which doesn't include her war poetry):
From To Be a Woman (1972)
A Woman Talks to Her Thigh
It is only thanks to your good looks
I can take part
in the rites of love.
Mystical ecstasies
treasons delightful
as crimson lipstick,
a perverse rococo
of psychological involutions,
sweetness of carnal longings
that take your breath,
pits of despair
sinking to the very bottom of the world:
all this I owe to you.
How tenderly every day I should
lash you with a whip of cold water,
if you alone allow me to possess
beauty and wisdom
irreplaceable.
The souls of my lovers
open to me in a moment of love
and I have them in my dominion.
I look as does a sculptor
on his work
at their faces snapped shut with eyelids,
martyred by ecstasy,
made dense by happiness.
I read as does an angel
thoughts in their skulls,
I feel in my hand
a beating human heart,
I listen to the words
which are whispered by one human to another
in the frankest moments of one’s life.
I enter their souls,
I wander
by a road of delight or horror
to lands as inconceivable
as the bottoms of the oceans.
Later on, heavy with treasures
I come slowly
to myself.
O, many riches
many precious truths
growing immense in a metaphysical echo,
many initiations
delicate and startling
I owe to you, my thigh.
The most exquisite refinement of my soul
would not give me any of those treasures
if not for the clear, smooth charm
of an amoral little animal.
She Does Not Remember
She was an evil stepmother.
In her old age she is slowly dying
in an empty hovel.
She shudders
like a wad of burning paper.
She does not remember that she was evil.
But she knows
that she feels cold.
The Greatest Love
She is sixty. She lives
the greatest love of her life.
She walks arm in arm with her dear one,
her hair streams in the wind.
Her dear one says:
“You have hair like pearls.”
Her children say:
“Old fool.”
From Wind (1970)
I give birth to life.
It went out of my entrails
and asks for the sacrifice of my life
as does an Aztec deity,
I lean over a little puppet,
we look at each other
with four eyes.
“You are not going to defeat me,” I say
“I won’t be an egg which you would crack
in a hurry for the world,
a footbridge that you would take on the way to your life.
I will defend myself.”
I lean over a little puppet.
I notice
a tiny movement of a tiny finger
which a little while ago was still in me,
in which under a thin skin,
my own blood flows.
And suddenly I am flooded
by a high, luminous wave
of humility.
Powerless, I drown.
From Poems About My Father and Mother (Polish title: Suffering and Joy, published posthumously, 1985):
I Wash the Shirt
For the last time I wash the shirt
of my father who died.
The shirt smells of sweat. I remember
that sweat from my childhood,
so many years
I washed his shirts and underwear,
I dried them
at an iron stove in the workshop,
he would put them on unironed.
From among all the bodies in the world,
animal, human,
only one exuded that sweat.
I breathe it in
for the last time. Washing this shirt
I destroy it
forever.
Now
only paintings survive him
which smell of oils.
In a postscript Czeslaw Milosz said: “She is now regarded as a truly eminent poet of metaphysical orientation . . .obsessed with the perishability of the flesh. . . Opening myself to her verses, I have been more and more conquered by her extraordinary, powerful, exuberant and joyous personality. Reading her was like discovering in someone who is close to us an unsuspected, strange and admirable being. Perhaps I was even falling in love with her. What I found particularly attractive in her was her calm in accepting reality, whether it brought bliss or suffering. . . . To have met such a person through her poems has inclined me to faith and optimism.”
Only having met her through her poetry, I feel the same.
March 11, 2016
I have been struck by this collection. It's peculiarity, the collection. The poems themselves are organized into 5 sections, that in my reading, feel delineated by time and aspects of style, but held together by a point of view on life that I could not identify with. That is to say, I fell in love with many poems – in each section – I felt them on many levels of love and appreciation. And yet, so much of the work could only be intellectualized by my mind. Understanding where Anna Swir wrote from in her time, but not feeling another level beyond the immediate reaction. I understand this partly to be a regional concern, but also her "miniature"style, which appeals to me immensely, did not always make sense to me. I did very much enjoy the Afterword dialogue between translators Czeslaw Milosz and Leonard Nathan – brought a deeper sense of the work to me, they added poems from different times in her life that typically reside in other collections to fill out an understanding of Swir. This lead to me rereading many of the poems in the collection with a nuanced eye. This is all to say that I feel this collection offers a lot beyond discovering poems that one can love and appreciate, be touched by, effected by, etc.. Rather be struck by a whole life, a different way, an intimate look inside another and that other knowing damn well you're looking. And the translators couldn't have been better guides. Now, I can't wait to read Swir's war poems in Building the Barricade.
October 9, 2019
I've never been a great reader of poetry, but these nice little poems are helping me out with my Polish vocabulary and understanding.
Some compositions remind me of Szymborska in their apparent simplicity wondering on everyday's life and tiny but significant details, but Anna Swir (Świrszczyńska) deals with post WWII feelings and family as well, focusing on her father who was a painter.
Both topics are found in the poem I liked the most, so far. It's entitled 'He Did Not Jump from the Third Floor' and reads like this in English translation.
The second World War
Warsaw.
Tonight they dropped bombs
on the Theatre Square.
At the Theatre Square
Father has his workshop.
All paintings, labor
of forty years.
Next morning father went
to the Theatre Square.
He saw.
His workshop has no ceiling,
has no walls
no floor.
Father did not jump
from the third floor.
Father started over
from the beginning.
Bless Miłosz who translated Swir into English (taking some liberties in metric) as well as the publisher who kept the original text in this edition.
And thank you to the second hand bookseller in Krakow who found this little gem for me when asked if he had anything in English (this book was the one and only)!
Some compositions remind me of Szymborska in their apparent simplicity wondering on everyday's life and tiny but significant details, but Anna Swir (Świrszczyńska) deals with post WWII feelings and family as well, focusing on her father who was a painter.
Both topics are found in the poem I liked the most, so far. It's entitled 'He Did Not Jump from the Third Floor' and reads like this in English translation.
The second World War
Warsaw.
Tonight they dropped bombs
on the Theatre Square.
At the Theatre Square
Father has his workshop.
All paintings, labor
of forty years.
Next morning father went
to the Theatre Square.
He saw.
His workshop has no ceiling,
has no walls
no floor.
Father did not jump
from the third floor.
Father started over
from the beginning.
Bless Miłosz who translated Swir into English (taking some liberties in metric) as well as the publisher who kept the original text in this edition.
And thank you to the second hand bookseller in Krakow who found this little gem for me when asked if he had anything in English (this book was the one and only)!
January 7, 2014
I came across a few of Swir's poems in an anthology and they stopped me in my tracks and stuck with me for years. I was recently reminded of her poem "I Starve my Belly for a Sublime Purpose" when I was sunning myself, and went in search of more of her work.
Her poems are deceptively simple. She's quoted in the introduction as saying "Style is the enemy of the poet, and its greatest merit would be nonexistence." What results are spare and unpretentious poems where the words never get in the way.
As the title suggests, flesh and bodies are a recurring theme. There are poems about hunger, illness, madness, death, birth, about sex and love and family, absence and connection, moments of transcendent joy, or moments of grief and darkness. You know, the light fluffy things we like to think about all the time. But the frank and occassionaly humorous way she approaches all these topics kept me from feeling bogged down.
There are almost no "duds" for me in this collection, and I know I'll be visiting it again and again over the years.
Her poems are deceptively simple. She's quoted in the introduction as saying "Style is the enemy of the poet, and its greatest merit would be nonexistence." What results are spare and unpretentious poems where the words never get in the way.
As the title suggests, flesh and bodies are a recurring theme. There are poems about hunger, illness, madness, death, birth, about sex and love and family, absence and connection, moments of transcendent joy, or moments of grief and darkness. You know, the light fluffy things we like to think about all the time. But the frank and occassionaly humorous way she approaches all these topics kept me from feeling bogged down.
There are almost no "duds" for me in this collection, and I know I'll be visiting it again and again over the years.
August 19, 2022
Reading this, I cried, I smiled. I return to these poems and cry and smile some more.
February 11, 2014
Beautiful, crystalline poetry. Intimate, quirky, but a feeling of everyone/anyone included. Swir achieves worlds in such short spaces. I admired the poems about her family for their directness. But I gravitated most to the poems about the body. Though still direct and piercing, these fleshy, sensual poems feel more playful; they often include irony and, even, metaphysics. The Polish poets seem the best at creating a provocative irony (v. the often shallow American brand); I think it might have to do with using irony in incongruous ways rather than sarcastic ways. Here's a quick taste of her irony:
I Protest
Dying
is the hardest
work of all.
The old and sick
should be exempt from it.
Favorite poems: "Talking to My Body," "I Starve My Belly for a Sublime Purpose," "Myself and My Person," and "The Sea and Man." Favorite (harrowing) image: mother inking her white silk wedding shoes to go stand in a breadline.
I Protest
Dying
is the hardest
work of all.
The old and sick
should be exempt from it.
Favorite poems: "Talking to My Body," "I Starve My Belly for a Sublime Purpose," "Myself and My Person," and "The Sea and Man." Favorite (harrowing) image: mother inking her white silk wedding shoes to go stand in a breadline.
October 13, 2024
To take the body seriously is to be baffled by it, to be alarmed by it, to fall in and out of love with it. For we all fall into our bodies, sideways, in such a subtle way that we can't pinpoint an origin. Whatever "we" are slowly seeps into existence: far from a flash, far from something calculable, yet here we are.
Are we our bodies? Are we trapped in them? Are we liberated by them? Anna Swir takes up each of these positions in turn, dropping them as easily as she picks them up. She treats her body itself in a similar way, able to dissociate her essence, her spirit, her consciousness from her body and yet leave herself open enough for reunion. The movement between these positions is what gives her poems life, is what allows for the breath of her simple lines, each taking up just enough air, no more.
Like the air we breathe, bodies are inherently inherited things, a hodge-podge of countless generations past. Anna extrapolates impossibly backwards, intellectually fathoming the time before her time, despite the admission elsewhere that all we are are pinpricks in time, a present moment touching eternity. Anna embraces the paradox and impossibility of incarnation in an idiosyncratic, honest way. Seemingly without recourse to any world religion or worldview, she explores the odd corners of embodiment that we've grown used to or have overlooked. She writes with childlike curiosity and simplicity, yet it's tempered with adult experience and weariness. For example, Swir feels the crushing weight of tradition and inheritance:
The dead sit on me
like a mountain. The carrion
of barbaric epochs,
of bodies and thoughts decays in me.
Cruel corpses of centuries
ask
that I be as cruel as they.
But I am not going to repeat
their dead words.
I have to give myself
a new birth. I have to
give birth to a new time.
Yet simultaneously she finds [in] the body an exploratory mode of transportation [and] a place to explore, a cavernous temple for the soul or longing or whatever is inside of us. The same bodies which keep each other warm can also cryogenically freeze each other, even despite being careful: "I gave him pain / though I wanted so much / to give him happiness. // And he took it / delicately, as one takes / happiness."
Such disconnect and gaps, both between each other and between ourselves and our bodies, rather than being problems, are really generative, in both senses of the word's etymology. Though sometimes painful, the tension of the gap generates new possibilities, new life, new ideas, new questions; it also, in a way related to "genre," cleaves mingled chaos into categories: you and me, myself and by body, us and them, present versus not-present, etc.
Modern philosophy unconvincingly spills seas of ink and fells entire forests to cover not even a fraction of what Anna Swir explores in here. Philosophy divorced from the concrete specificity of physical experience is so much hot air, just as theology divorced from incarnation is deeply unconvincing. Though Anna carefully avoids theology, you can feel the weight of theology pressing all around the body, in turns holding it up and shoving it down. Anna's theology/philosophy starts from experience and permeates outward, rather than starting from some esoteric thinker's half-understood words. The result is eminently refreshing in an age of exponentially solipsistic ouroboroi.
In one way, the physicality of her worldview and her poetics must have been unavoidable, what with her surviving the cold and the hunger and the brutality of Poland during WWII. Apparently she underwent a feigned execution similarly to Dostoevsky, which recurs in passing references throughout the collection. So much recurs and reformulates itself here, just like the body itself: ever-changing, yet ever "you."
In contrast to the vast majority of contemporary poetry, Swir's palpably lacks pretension. Rather, she lets the blunt drop of flesh on concrete wake you up with the unexpected pain, the sort of pain you might have forgotten existed, the sort of sensation that takes your breath away, both the good and the bad. She celebrates the body in a way more mature than most celebrations (which fixate on the positive and pretend the negative doesn't exist). Instead, we see here a whole spectrum of joy and sorrow, hope and despair, desire and loss.
Just as she tactfully avoids theology, Swir's politics are a direct result of her own lived experience, especially the dual feeling of invincibility and vulnerability resulting from her legendary hour awaiting execution. Hers is no false confidence, but a hard-fought wisdom that can't be bothered by trivialities. Her feminism is as frank as her laughter. Her sexuality isn't some pornographic spectacle, like art tends toward today; rather, it's yet another of those gaps I mentioned above, one cyclically arranged like all life processes. It feels gentle, warm, and inviting, much like the moments of tenderness in All Quiet on the Western Front. For her, sexuality is wrapped in a blanket, like birth, like death. All three commingle in her secular trinity.
The collection ends with a poem from her friend's perspective rather than her own. The friend is on their deathbed, and it takes a moment for us readers to notice the perspective shift. Once we realize it, we wonder where Anna has gone, and it feels a little lonely. "I say farewell to Anna" reads the poem, but thankfully we never have to say goodbye so long as we have this wonderful collection. I've gained a new friend in this book, and I hope you will too.
Are we our bodies? Are we trapped in them? Are we liberated by them? Anna Swir takes up each of these positions in turn, dropping them as easily as she picks them up. She treats her body itself in a similar way, able to dissociate her essence, her spirit, her consciousness from her body and yet leave herself open enough for reunion. The movement between these positions is what gives her poems life, is what allows for the breath of her simple lines, each taking up just enough air, no more.
Like the air we breathe, bodies are inherently inherited things, a hodge-podge of countless generations past. Anna extrapolates impossibly backwards, intellectually fathoming the time before her time, despite the admission elsewhere that all we are are pinpricks in time, a present moment touching eternity. Anna embraces the paradox and impossibility of incarnation in an idiosyncratic, honest way. Seemingly without recourse to any world religion or worldview, she explores the odd corners of embodiment that we've grown used to or have overlooked. She writes with childlike curiosity and simplicity, yet it's tempered with adult experience and weariness. For example, Swir feels the crushing weight of tradition and inheritance:
The dead sit on me
like a mountain. The carrion
of barbaric epochs,
of bodies and thoughts decays in me.
Cruel corpses of centuries
ask
that I be as cruel as they.
But I am not going to repeat
their dead words.
I have to give myself
a new birth. I have to
give birth to a new time.
Yet simultaneously she finds [in] the body an exploratory mode of transportation [and] a place to explore, a cavernous temple for the soul or longing or whatever is inside of us. The same bodies which keep each other warm can also cryogenically freeze each other, even despite being careful: "I gave him pain / though I wanted so much / to give him happiness. // And he took it / delicately, as one takes / happiness."
Such disconnect and gaps, both between each other and between ourselves and our bodies, rather than being problems, are really generative, in both senses of the word's etymology. Though sometimes painful, the tension of the gap generates new possibilities, new life, new ideas, new questions; it also, in a way related to "genre," cleaves mingled chaos into categories: you and me, myself and by body, us and them, present versus not-present, etc.
Modern philosophy unconvincingly spills seas of ink and fells entire forests to cover not even a fraction of what Anna Swir explores in here. Philosophy divorced from the concrete specificity of physical experience is so much hot air, just as theology divorced from incarnation is deeply unconvincing. Though Anna carefully avoids theology, you can feel the weight of theology pressing all around the body, in turns holding it up and shoving it down. Anna's theology/philosophy starts from experience and permeates outward, rather than starting from some esoteric thinker's half-understood words. The result is eminently refreshing in an age of exponentially solipsistic ouroboroi.
In one way, the physicality of her worldview and her poetics must have been unavoidable, what with her surviving the cold and the hunger and the brutality of Poland during WWII. Apparently she underwent a feigned execution similarly to Dostoevsky, which recurs in passing references throughout the collection. So much recurs and reformulates itself here, just like the body itself: ever-changing, yet ever "you."
In contrast to the vast majority of contemporary poetry, Swir's palpably lacks pretension. Rather, she lets the blunt drop of flesh on concrete wake you up with the unexpected pain, the sort of pain you might have forgotten existed, the sort of sensation that takes your breath away, both the good and the bad. She celebrates the body in a way more mature than most celebrations (which fixate on the positive and pretend the negative doesn't exist). Instead, we see here a whole spectrum of joy and sorrow, hope and despair, desire and loss.
Just as she tactfully avoids theology, Swir's politics are a direct result of her own lived experience, especially the dual feeling of invincibility and vulnerability resulting from her legendary hour awaiting execution. Hers is no false confidence, but a hard-fought wisdom that can't be bothered by trivialities. Her feminism is as frank as her laughter. Her sexuality isn't some pornographic spectacle, like art tends toward today; rather, it's yet another of those gaps I mentioned above, one cyclically arranged like all life processes. It feels gentle, warm, and inviting, much like the moments of tenderness in All Quiet on the Western Front. For her, sexuality is wrapped in a blanket, like birth, like death. All three commingle in her secular trinity.
The collection ends with a poem from her friend's perspective rather than her own. The friend is on their deathbed, and it takes a moment for us readers to notice the perspective shift. Once we realize it, we wonder where Anna has gone, and it feels a little lonely. "I say farewell to Anna" reads the poem, but thankfully we never have to say goodbye so long as we have this wonderful collection. I've gained a new friend in this book, and I hope you will too.
September 22, 2009
Dualism.
Nice use of language and flow.
Accessible.
Nice use of language and flow.
Accessible.
December 21, 2022
《 Σταματώ
σε μια γωνιά του δρόμου για να στρίψω αριστερά
και αναρωτιέμαι τί θα συνέβαινε
εάν ο εαυτός μου έστριβε δεξιά.
Μέχρι τώρα αυτό δεν έχει συμβεί
το ερώτημα όμως παραμένει. 》
~ Anna Swir, απόσπασμα από το ποίημα "Ο εαυτός μου κι εγώ"
Τα ποιήματα της Anna Swir στην ανά χείρας συλλογή καταδύονται στο εσωτερικό του Σώματος και φτάνουν στον Εαυτό. Μία διάκριση που έχει ήδη απασχολήσει τη φιλοσοφία και η Swir το γνωρίζει καλά, διαπλέκοντας την υλικότητα του σώματος με την αϋλότητα του πνεύματος σε μια διαλεκτική μεταξύ τους. Το ποιητικό εγχείρημα της κινείται σε έναν κόσμο διπόλων μεταξύ ζωής-θανάτου, έρωτα-θανάτου, ζωής-πόνου, υλικότητας-αϋλοσύνης, περατού-άπειρου, σώματος-ψυχής, συνειδητού-ασυνειδήτου.
Η ποίησή της είναι σαν μεταλλική βελόνα που διατρέχει την επιφάνεια του δέρματος, ψηλαφώντας το σύνορο-όριό του για να το διαπεράσει αποφασιστικά. Για την ίδια, η ποίηση έρχεται σε εμάς για να απαντήσει το αιωνίως ακατανόητο μα εξίσου επιτακτικό ερώτημα "Γιατί έχουμε γεννηθεί;". Εν τέλει, η ποίηση καταλήγει απλώς να ερμηνεύει 《αυτό το τερατούργημα που λέγεται ζωή》, παρατείνοντας την αγωνία του ποιητικού ακροατηρίου και την ατέρμονη προσπάθεια της Swir να προσεγγίσει την απάντηση.
σε μια γωνιά του δρόμου για να στρίψω αριστερά
και αναρωτιέμαι τί θα συνέβαινε
εάν ο εαυτός μου έστριβε δεξιά.
Μέχρι τώρα αυτό δεν έχει συμβεί
το ερώτημα όμως παραμένει. 》
~ Anna Swir, απόσπασμα από το ποίημα "Ο εαυτός μου κι εγώ"
Τα ποιήματα της Anna Swir στην ανά χείρας συλλογή καταδύονται στο εσωτερικό του Σώματος και φτάνουν στον Εαυτό. Μία διάκριση που έχει ήδη απασχολήσει τη φιλοσοφία και η Swir το γνωρίζει καλά, διαπλέκοντας την υλικότητα του σώματος με την αϋλότητα του πνεύματος σε μια διαλεκτική μεταξύ τους. Το ποιητικό εγχείρημα της κινείται σε έναν κόσμο διπόλων μεταξύ ζωής-θανάτου, έρωτα-θανάτου, ζωής-πόνου, υλικότητας-αϋλοσύνης, περατού-άπειρου, σώματος-ψυχής, συνειδητού-ασυνειδήτου.
Η ποίησή της είναι σαν μεταλλική βελόνα που διατρέχει την επιφάνεια του δέρματος, ψηλαφώντας το σύνορο-όριό του για να το διαπεράσει αποφασιστικά. Για την ίδια, η ποίηση έρχεται σε εμάς για να απαντήσει το αιωνίως ακατανόητο μα εξίσου επιτακτικό ερώτημα "Γιατί έχουμε γεννηθεί;". Εν τέλει, η ποίηση καταλήγει απλώς να ερμηνεύει 《αυτό το τερατούργημα που λέγεται ζωή》, παρατείνοντας την αγωνία του ποιητικού ακροατηρίου και την ατέρμονη προσπάθεια της Swir να προσεγγίσει την απάντηση.
January 25, 2023
This was the most spectacularly beautiful collections I've ever read. I want to carry it in my pocket for the rest of my life.
January 9, 2025
Anna Swir has become one of my favorite poets.
October 20, 2024
It felt like I was listening to Anna's inner mind.
It is dialogue that doesn't come up in casual conversation, but thoughts we all have. Putting the weight on Anna's shoulders to humanize her existence of body + mind during WWII.
It is dialogue that doesn't come up in casual conversation, but thoughts we all have. Putting the weight on Anna's shoulders to humanize her existence of body + mind during WWII.
April 14, 2020
Translated from Polish to English by Czesław Miłosz and Leonard Nathan, the poems of Polish poet Anna Świrszczyńska come together in a beautiful testament to a Polish poet’s experience of war, resistance, poverty, and mortality. As the title reveals, the speaker in Świrszczyńska's poems talks to her body and witnesses its births and rebirths, suffering and happiness, and its survival. She surveils her body as it sleeps, speaks to soldiers in hospitals as they are dying, swims, screams, and takes part "in the rites of love." In the poem "The Soul and the Body on the Beach," the body and soul converse. The body is only interested in absorbing sunlight, whereas the soul has existential questions: "The soul asks the body: / Where will the dying begin, / in you or me? / The body laughs, / It tanned its knees." In setting up conversations between body and soul, Świrszczyńska touches on fears that many people share about mortality, the afterlife, and existence itself, and expresses all of this with admirable restraint.
In the afterword, Miłosz notes that Świrszczyńska strove to write poetry using as few words as possible. He notes that this spareness, along with her ability to write about the body without entering confessional terrain, makes her stand out from American women poets who write about the body. She strives to portray a realistic picture of events, and her attention to craft is fierce. Some poems contain elements of pure joy, which might surprise a reader after encountering subjects like childhood poverty and wartime hardship. The poem "Happy as a Dog's Tail" stands out. She writes, "Happy as something unimportant / and free as something unimportant. / As something no one prizes / and which does not pize itself. / As something mocked by all / and which mocks at their mockery ... / Happy as no matter what, as any no matter what. / Happy / as a dog's tail."
Świrszczyńska's poems have memorable endings, and a favorite of mine is the conclusion to "My Mother, Miss Stasia,” which is simply: “She married a madman." Quick dramatic flairs like this are delightful because they are used so sparingly. Her spareness binds poetry to reality. Upon finishing this book, I'm struck by its compact power. Her linguistic restraint conveys an incredible amount of feeling, and reminds me of this quote by poet Marianne Moore: "The deepest feeling always shows itself in silence; not in silence, but restraint." Świrszczyńska's poetry, powerful in its brevity, reveals an incredible depth of feeling as she observed a body that experiences, endures, and fights to survive.
In the afterword, Miłosz notes that Świrszczyńska strove to write poetry using as few words as possible. He notes that this spareness, along with her ability to write about the body without entering confessional terrain, makes her stand out from American women poets who write about the body. She strives to portray a realistic picture of events, and her attention to craft is fierce. Some poems contain elements of pure joy, which might surprise a reader after encountering subjects like childhood poverty and wartime hardship. The poem "Happy as a Dog's Tail" stands out. She writes, "Happy as something unimportant / and free as something unimportant. / As something no one prizes / and which does not pize itself. / As something mocked by all / and which mocks at their mockery ... / Happy as no matter what, as any no matter what. / Happy / as a dog's tail."
Świrszczyńska's poems have memorable endings, and a favorite of mine is the conclusion to "My Mother, Miss Stasia,” which is simply: “She married a madman." Quick dramatic flairs like this are delightful because they are used so sparingly. Her spareness binds poetry to reality. Upon finishing this book, I'm struck by its compact power. Her linguistic restraint conveys an incredible amount of feeling, and reminds me of this quote by poet Marianne Moore: "The deepest feeling always shows itself in silence; not in silence, but restraint." Świrszczyńska's poetry, powerful in its brevity, reveals an incredible depth of feeling as she observed a body that experiences, endures, and fights to survive.
May 30, 2010
I quite like these... I stumbled upon the poem "I Starve My Belly For a Sublime Purpose" in "A Book of Luminous Things", edited by Milosz. I loved it enough to go looking for more of Swir's work, and am glad I did. The poem "Virginity" is incredible, in particular, but all of them are wonderful.
Important note: this translation of Swir's work is far superior to the translation in "Fat Like the Sun", which does include some of the same poems.
Important note: this translation of Swir's work is far superior to the translation in "Fat Like the Sun", which does include some of the same poems.
September 29, 2008
Czeslaw Milosz brought Anna Swir to my attention in his A Book of Luminous Things: An International Anthology of Poetry. Hers are among the best poems I've read and Talking to My Body is among the best books of poetry I've read. An authentic voice. If you've wanted a reason to like poetry again, Anna Swir is it.
July 28, 2007
Fairly obscure Polish poet translated by Milosz. Her poems are very direct, stripped, and sensuous.
October 14, 2007
Reading this book was a spiritual experience. It is a true favorite that rarely leaves my side.
December 18, 2019
This book is like a sculpture, where each individual poem is a wet piece of clay molding a (part of the) body. Personal, surreal, twisted, and empowering.
February 2, 2022
2,5*
Unpopular opinion: I did not like this book. Most of it was just "meh". Some poems had a very nice and deep meaning, however even then, I was not a fan of the form. I noticed many patterns in writing, which became irritating to me.
Furthermore, as a native Polish speaker fluent in English I was able to read both the Polish and English version and compare them, and honestly, the translation had some errors. Some words were sometimes translated too literally, losing, for example, their connotation or the rhythm of the poem.
It also made me feel dumb af, as many poems were unable to be understood no matter how hard you try. Definitely too abstract for me. Sadly, I won't be reaching for any more works of this poet.
Unpopular opinion: I did not like this book. Most of it was just "meh". Some poems had a very nice and deep meaning, however even then, I was not a fan of the form. I noticed many patterns in writing, which became irritating to me.
Furthermore, as a native Polish speaker fluent in English I was able to read both the Polish and English version and compare them, and honestly, the translation had some errors. Some words were sometimes translated too literally, losing, for example, their connotation or the rhythm of the poem.
It also made me feel dumb af, as many poems were unable to be understood no matter how hard you try. Definitely too abstract for me. Sadly, I won't be reaching for any more works of this poet.
January 1, 2018
I've dipped into this book many times over the ten plus years I've owned it. But reading it cover to cover in the course of one sitting I finally took in the full scope of her work and the deep richness of its simplicity. It is a book about the body in its many forms and attentions—mammalian, metaphysical, medieval. But to talk *to* the body, of course, she has to stand *apart* from the body. That distance gives these short, direct poems a powerful charge, as they run between the poles of the material flesh—and its attendant wants and needs—and the open-eyed intellect.
December 15, 2020
I bought this book for 2.00 on a discount shelf at a local book store and it was the best purchase I made this year. I was drawn to this book because I am a poet and one of my poems has the line Talking to my Body in it and I was intrigued by it. I ended up adoring this poetry collection by Polish poet Anna Swir. Most of her books are extremely hard to find in the U.S. in an English translation as most are out of print. She is an amazing poet and she inspires me to be a better poet and to try different styles.
May 25, 2020
I was really impressed with this volume of poems written with precision, economy of means, sensitivity and with a unique insight into the human condition. I am not surprised that Czeslaw Milosz was interested in translating them and making them available to the English speaking world. I wish the poet was more popular, not only in the entire world, but also in her own country, where she is currently completely forgotten.
Read
May 18, 2024Light and Space.
This is a beautiful thing but I know very well it won't be for everyone. If you decide to read it, do not miss Milosz's very final word at the end. It surprised me with joy all over again.
Some of his favorite poems from this book are also some of mine. But I'll let you discover them yourself.
This is a beautiful thing but I know very well it won't be for everyone. If you decide to read it, do not miss Milosz's very final word at the end. It surprised me with joy all over again.
Some of his favorite poems from this book are also some of mine. But I'll let you discover them yourself.
July 3, 2020
Anna Swir is in my top ten favorite writers. Her poetry portrays a "calligraphic neatness" presenting war, the body, love, and pain. I feel a true connection with her writing; even in her death she has empowered me to become a better person.
March 4, 2023
Inspirująca forma, ale czasem tematyka nie rezonowała - a chyba to ważne w poezji? Nie wiem, nie znam się, ale wystawiam oceny literaturze w skali 5-gwiazdkowej na tym serwisie od tylu lat że czuję się zobowiązany do katalogowania tutaj swoich odczuć tego wszystkiego co przeczytałem.
May 7, 2024
I really loved these poems. And the interview act the end between Nathan and Milosz is delightful and insightful. I loved her simple, short poems. She gets to the point and she does not linger, yet invites you to linger. I really loved these.
January 13, 2025
read this for thesis ended up really really loving it which means a lot bc im sick of thesis and also i kind of hate poetry.
i obviously am preoccupied with fleshy symbolism right now. swir did it very well
i obviously am preoccupied with fleshy symbolism right now. swir did it very well
April 29, 2018
Oh, yes and wasn’t this just lovely.
Three days
I starve my belly
so that it learns to eat the sun.
Her words and the translation was just beautiful and so relevant.
Three days
I starve my belly
so that it learns to eat the sun.
Her words and the translation was just beautiful and so relevant.
July 22, 2018
I love the spareness, tenderness, and severity in these poems. As Milosz says in A Book of Luminous Things, Swir writes love poems without being confessional. It's something to aspire to.
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