The poems of Wislawa Szymborska

I really like this two.

The Three Oddest Words

When I pronounce the word Future,
the first syllable already belongs to the past.

When I pronounce the word Silence,
I destroy it.

When I pronounce the word Nothing,
I make something no non-being can hold.


Possibilities

I prefer movies.
I prefer cats.
I prefer the oaks along the Warta.
I prefer Dickens to Dostoyevsky.
I prefer myself liking people
to myself loving mankind.
I prefer keeping a needle and thread on hand, just in case.
I prefer the color green.
I prefer not to maintain
that reason is to blame for everything.
I prefer exceptions.
I prefer to leave early.
I prefer talking to doctors about something else.
I prefer the old fine-lined illustrations.
I prefer the absurdity of writing poems
to the absurdity of not writing poems.
I prefer, where love's concerned, nonspecific anniversaries
that can be celebrated every day.
I prefer moralists
who promise me nothing.
I prefer cunning kindness to the over-trustful kind.
I prefer the earth in civvies.
I prefer conquered to conquering countries.
I prefer having some reservations.
I prefer the hell of chaos to the hell of order.
I prefer Grimms' fairy tales to the newspapers' front pages.
I prefer leaves without flowers to flowers without leaves.
I prefer dogs with uncropped tails.
I prefer light eyes, since mine are dark.
I prefer desk drawers.
I prefer many things that I haven't mentioned here
to many things I've also left unsaid.
I prefer zeroes on the loose
to those lined up behind a cipher.
I prefer the time of insects to the time of stars.
I prefer to knock on wood.
I prefer not to ask how much longer and when.
I prefer keeping in mind even the possibility
that existence has its own reason for being.

This thread is getting me very interested in Szymborska's poetry. Which English edition of her work do the connoisseurs recommend? I think there's not yet a collected edition of her works, just selections.

What I like with Szymborska that she speaks with a tone both musical and mystical, going the vitally important extra step to view the world not only with wonder and compassion, but also with a unique creativity.

She also have a good sense of humor, like in the beginning of her Nobel acceptans speech. "They say the first sentence in any speech is always the hardest. Well, that one's behind me."

I read Szymborska in swedish and are very happy with the translation.

Here in Portugal she isn't easily available. I'm better off reading her in English.

Dreams


Despite the geologists’ knowledge and craft,
mocking magnets, graphs, and maps—
in a split second the dream
piles before us mountains as stony
as real life.


And since mountains, then valleys, plains
with perfect infrastructures.
Without engineers, contractors, workers,
bulldozers, diggers, or supplies—
raging highways, instant bridges,
thickly populated pop-up cities.


Without directors, megaphones, and cameramen—
crowds knowing exactly when to frighten us
and when to vanish.


Without architects deft in their craft,
without carpenters, bricklayers, concrete pourers—
on the path a sudden house just like a toy,
and in it vast halls that echo with our steps
and walls constructed out of solid air.


Not just the scale, it’s also the precision—
a specific watch, an entire fly,
on the table a cloth with cross-stitched flowers,
a bitten apple with teeth marks.


And we—unlike circus acrobats,
conjurers, wizards, and hypnotists—
can fly unfledged,
we light dark tunnels with our eyes,
we wax eloquent in unknown tongues,
talking not with just anyone, but with the dead. {...excerpt}
[translated by Clare Cavanagh & Stanislaw Baranczak]

One thing that we noticed when we were mulling over Nothing twice was the rhyme scheme. As the title suggests, it never repeats the same rhyme. The title also portrays the central idea of the whole poem: that there are no re-dos in life. As Szymborska puts it in lines seven and eight, "You can't repeat the class in summer, the course is only offered once." (Szymborska l.7-8) The rose is a very prominent symbol in the poem, because it symbolizes the duality of a moment. The rose could either be a flower, an extension of peace and love, or a rock: hard, cold, and hurtful. She also uses consonance with the letter "s" throughout the poem, because s is a very short sound.

my native poet :D

I may tell you an anecdote relating to Szymborska. In Poland we have a kind of A lavel exam after high school (Matura exam). It's a moot point in our education system and Szymborska was asked to take this exam. She was analysing her own poem during the exam and she failed! :) That's the example why the Polish education system is rubbish! A pontential student is supposed to follow a kind of set of answers............... that's the question of students' creativity and so on...

I don't think we really talked about the last 2 stanza's of "In Praise of Dreams" (pgs 138-139). I noticed a shift there that changed from dream aspects that changed how the narrator acts versus what she sees. All previous stanzas talked about things she is able to do in her dreams. She can speak Greek, breathe underwater, and ignore wars. However, the last 2 stanzas show how what she sees can also change. She says, "A few years ago/I saw two suns./And the night before last a penguin,/clear as day." (27-30) Instead of just changing herself here, she changes the world. This shift helps convey a universal idea. What one person wants can vary and is often hard to relate to. But a change in the world is easier for the reader to imagine, thus making the whole poem easier to relate to.

Wisława Szymborska died today 89 years old. She was a great poet - probably the greatest Polish poet of modern times.


On Death, without Exaggeration

It can't take a joke,
find a star, make a bridge.
It knows nothing about weaving, mining, farming,
building ships, or baking cakes.

In our planning for tomorrow,
it has the final word,
which is always beside the point.

It can't even get the things done
that are part of its trade:
dig a grave,
make a coffin,
clean up after itself.

Preoccupied with killing,
it does the job awkwardly,
without system or skill.
As though each of us were its first kill.

Oh, it has its triumphs,
but look at its countless defeats,
missed blows,
and repeat attempts!

Sometimes it isn't strong enough
to swat a fly from the air.
Many are the caterpillars
that have outcrawled it.

All those bulbs, pods,
tentacles, fins, tracheae,
nuptial plumage, and winter fur
show that it has fallen behind
with its halfhearted work.

Ill will won't help
and even our lending a hand with wars and coups d'etat
is so far not enough.

Hearts beat inside eggs.
Babies' skeletons grow.
Seeds, hard at work, sprout their first tiny pair of leaves
and sometimes even tall trees fall away.

Whoever claims that it's omnipotent
is himself living proof
that it's not.

There's no life
that couldn't be immortal
if only for a moment.

Death
always arrives by that very moment too late.

In vain it tugs at the knob
of the invisible door.
As far as you've come
can't be undone.

Sad news; I loved reading Poems: New and Collected in 2010, and I was just waiting for Here to come out in paperback. I'd like to know what Adam Zagajewski thinks of this; after Szymborska, he was the most popular Polish poet alive.

Reading through some of these poems, I'm definitely not wowed. Is this the best contemporary poetry has to offer?

What bothers you about them?