Wislawa Szymborska
Wislawa Szymborska was born in Kornik in Western Poland on 2 July 1923. Since
1931 she has been living in Krakow, where during 1945-1948 she studied Polish
Literature and Sociology at the Jagiellonian University. Szymborska made her
début in March 1945 with a poem "Szukam slowa" (I am Looking for a Word) in the
daily "Dziennik Polski".
During 1953-1981 she worked as poetry editor
and columnist in the Kraków literary weekly "Zycie Literackie" where the series
of her essays "Lektury nadobowiazkowe" appeared (the series has been renewed
lately in the addition to "Gazeta Wyborcza"-"Gazeta o Ksiazkach"). The
collection "Lektury nadobowiazkowe" was published in the form of a book four
times.
Szymborska has published 16 collections of poetry: Dlatego
zyjemy (1952), Pytania zadawane sobie (1954), Wolanie do Yeti (1957), Sól
(1962), Wiersze wybrane (1964), Poezje wybrane (1967), Sto pociech (1967),
Poezje (1970), Wszelki wypadek (1972), Wybór wierszy (1973), Tarsjusz i inne
wiersze (1976), Wielka liczba (1976), Poezje wybrane II (1983), Ludzie na
moscie (1986). Koniec i poczatek (1993, 1996), Widok z ziarnkiem piasku. 102
wiersze (1996) . Wislawa Szymborska has also translated French poetry.
Her poems have been translated (and published in book form) in English,
German, Swedish, Italian, Danish, Hebrew, Hungarian, Czech, Slovakian,
Serbo-Croatian, Romanian, Bulgarian and other languages. They have also been
published in many foreign anthologies of Polish poetry.
Wislawa
Szymborska is the Goethe Prize winner (1991) and Herder Prize winner (1995).
She has a degree of Honorary Doctor of Letters of Poznan University (1995). In
1996 she received the Polish PEN Club prize
1931 she has been living in Krakow, where during 1945-1948 she studied Polish
Literature and Sociology at the Jagiellonian University. Szymborska made her
début in March 1945 with a poem "Szukam slowa" (I am Looking for a Word) in the
daily "Dziennik Polski".
During 1953-1981 she worked as poetry editor
and columnist in the Kraków literary weekly "Zycie Literackie" where the series
of her essays "Lektury nadobowiazkowe" appeared (the series has been renewed
lately in the addition to "Gazeta Wyborcza"-"Gazeta o Ksiazkach"). The
collection "Lektury nadobowiazkowe" was published in the form of a book four
times.
Szymborska has published 16 collections of poetry: Dlatego
zyjemy (1952), Pytania zadawane sobie (1954), Wolanie do Yeti (1957), Sól
(1962), Wiersze wybrane (1964), Poezje wybrane (1967), Sto pociech (1967),
Poezje (1970), Wszelki wypadek (1972), Wybór wierszy (1973), Tarsjusz i inne
wiersze (1976), Wielka liczba (1976), Poezje wybrane II (1983), Ludzie na
moscie (1986). Koniec i poczatek (1993, 1996), Widok z ziarnkiem piasku. 102
wiersze (1996) . Wislawa Szymborska has also translated French poetry.
Her poems have been translated (and published in book form) in English,
German, Swedish, Italian, Danish, Hebrew, Hungarian, Czech, Slovakian,
Serbo-Croatian, Romanian, Bulgarian and other languages. They have also been
published in many foreign anthologies of Polish poetry.
Wislawa
Szymborska is the Goethe Prize winner (1991) and Herder Prize winner (1995).
She has a degree of Honorary Doctor of Letters of Poznan University (1995). In
1996 she received the Polish PEN Club prize
Some Like Poetry
Write it. Write. In ordinary ink on ordinary paper: they were given no food, they all died of hunger. "All. How many? It's a big meadow. How much grass for each one?" Write: I don't know. History counts its skeletons in round numbers. A thousand and one remains a thousand, as though the one had never existed: an imaginary embryo, an empty cradle, an ABC never read, air that laughs, cries, grows, emptiness running down steps toward the garden, nobody's place in the line. We stand in the meadow where it became flesh, and the meadow is silent as a false witness. Sunny. Green. Nearby, a forest with wood for chewing and water under the bark- every day a full ration of the view until you go blind. Overhead, a bird- the shadow of its life-giving wings brushed their lips. Their jaws opened. Teeth clacked against teeth. At night, the sickle moon shone in the sky and reaped wheat for their bread. Hands came floating from blackened icons, empty cups in their fingers. On a spit of barbed wire, a man was turning. They sang with their mouths full of earth. "A lovely song of how war strikes straight at the heart." Write: how silent. "Yes." |
Pi
The admirable number pi: three point one four one. All the following digits are also just a start, five nine two because it never ends. It can't be grasped, six five three five , at a glance, eight nine, by calculation, seven nine, through imagination, or even three two three eight in jest, or by comparison four six to anything two six four three in the world. The longest snake on earth ends at thirty-odd feet. Same goes for fairy tale snakes, though they make it a little longer. 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. Oh how short, all but mouse-like is the comet's tail! How frail is a ray of starlight, bending in any old space! Meanwhile two three fifteen three hundred nineteen my phone number your shirt size the year nineteen hundred and seventy-three sixth floor number of inhabitants sixty-five cents hip measurement two fingers a charade and a code, in which we find how blithe the trostle sings! and please remain calm, and heaven and earth shall pass away, but not pi, that won't happen, it still has an okay five, and quite a fine eight, and all but final seven, prodding and prodding a plodding eternity to last. |
Going Home
He came home. Said nothing. It was clear, though, that something had gone wrong. He lay down fully dressed. Pulled the blanket over his head. Tucked up his knees. He's nearly forty, but not at the moment. He exists just as he did inside his mother's womb, clad in seven walls of skin, in sheltered darkness. Tomorrow he'll give a lecture on homeostasis in metagalactic cosmonautics. For now, though, he has curled up and gone to sleep. |