The poems of Wislawa Szymborska

THE REAL WORLD [Definitely beautiful and very vivid imagery]

The real world doesn’t take flight
the way dreams do.
No muffled voice, no doorbell
can dispel it,
no shriek, no crash
can cut it short.

Images in dream [Dreams can either be simply vague or wildly imaginative; they’re creative. . .]
are hazy and ambiguous, [. . . whereas reality definitely is not what anyone could ever imagine it to be]
and can generally be explained
in many different ways.
Reality means reality: [It’s real; it’s life!!]
that’s tougher nut to crack. [It’s not impossible, but it is hard to live the life you always imagined to live]

Dreams have keys. [In a sense, you can control your dreams by your thoughts]
The real world opens on its own
and can’t be shut. [You can’t control what goes on in the real world b/c nature does take its course]
Report cards and stars
pour from it,
butterflies and flatiron warmers
shower down,
headless caps
and shards of clouds.
Together they form a rebus
that can’t be solved. [Coming of age like process]

Without us dreams couldn’t exist.
The one on whom the real world depends
is still unknown, [Without us the real world still goes on]
and the products of his insomnia [Loved the insomnia personification]
are available to anyone
who wakes up.

Dreams aren’t crazy— [They’re beautiful or otherwise they’d be called nightmares]
it’s the real world that’s insane, [I really loved this brilliant stanza, and I agree “dreams aren’t crazy. . .]
if only in the stubbornness [. . .it’s the real world that’s insane”. Anyone can learn that from experience]
with which it sticks
to the current of events.

It dreams our recently deceased
are still alive,
in perfect health, no less,
and restored to the full bloom of youth.
The real world lays the corpse
in front of us.
The real world doesn’t blink an eye.

Dreams are featherweights, [It’s because they’re easily forgotten]
and memory can shake them off with ease.
The real world doesn’t have to fear forgetfulness. [Reality is impossible to forget]
It’s a tough customer.
It sits on our shoulders,
weighs on our hearts,
tumbles to our feet.

There’s no escaping it,
it tags along each time we flee.
And there’s no stop
along our escape route
where reality isn’t expecting us. [It haunts us through the entirety of our lives]

[I’m curious as to what Szymborska intended to say through this poem. Is she saying that reality sucks or that we generally have no control over our lives? I think she intended to state the latter, but then again I could be wrong. After all, I really don’t know her personally.]

WE’RE EXTREMELY FORTUNATE [I really liked how we incorporated The God of Small Things here]

We’re extremely fortunate
not to know precisely
the kind of world we live in.

[I kept thinking is Szymborska saying that ignorance is bliss? And if so, to what extent?]

One would have
to live a long, long time,
unquestionably longer
than the world itself.

Get to know other worlds,
if only for comparison.

Rise above the flesh,
which only really knows
how to obstruct
and make trouble.

For the sake of research,
the big picture
and definitive conclusions,
one would have to transcend time,
in which everything scurries and whirls.

From that perspective,
one might as well bid farewell
to incidents and details.

[Back to The God of Small Things again, from there we understood that the little things matter greatly, but then again it seems as though Szymborska is trying to say that too much knowledge would make them insignificant and in a way I agree with her. If someone is too knowledgeable about something they tend to avoid the details and jump right into the big picture.]

The counting of weekdays
would inevitably seem to be
a senseless activity;

dropping letters in the mailbox
a whim of foolish youth;

the sign “No Walking on the Grass”
a symptom of lunacy. [OCD personification or maybe imagery - either way it's indeed a very interesting thought]

It's quite interesting poet. i feel happy to this

DUI Attorney

I will start with the starvation camp near Jaslo. First of all, this poem reminded me of the "reality demands." Because it also uses a lot of allusions. And this poem specifically points out the place, Jaslo. It starts with the line saying, "write it down, write it", which is what the history does. History records what happened in the past. In this poem, I thought that Szymborska saw a history as the principal source of evil, since history keeps tracking time of the bad memory such as the starvation camp. Throughout the poem, I thought she was pretty cynical. Especially when she says "a thousand and one is still only a thousand."Also,there were hopeful things that were mentioned such as sunny and green. But the things that are hopeful are useless because they are too much or too little. Because she said "until you go blind." So you go blind, the things that are hopeful are useless anyway. Also, I noticed the time shift in this poem. (day time to night)

Okay, the next poem that I want to talk about is "The terrorist. He's watching." First time when I saw this title, It reminded me of the big brother from 1984. I am sure this guy is creepy as the big brother from the 1984. But I don't really get this poem. I made a chart who went in and who went out. And people who went in were wearing yellow, tall, or a fat guy with bald hair. And people who went out were wearing dark or short. First time, I thought that each person represents something. Like you know, usually yellow and tall people are hopeful than dark and short guys.... I am just saying I am not stereotypical. But in general.. So I thought that people who are justified in the society always sacrifice themselves, even though they don't need to. However, people who but aren't justified always avoid the chance of sacrificing themselves. But since the fat guy with bald hair went in. It shows there is always exception and that's how the society works.

The last poem that I want to talk about is "On death, without exaggeration."
First of all, Szymborska uses a lot of personification. It says "It can't take a joke" And death represents it in this line. I don't get some of stanzas. But, it shows the duality of the deaths. And there were some verbs that represent the living such as beats, grow, seeds. Also, there is a contradiction in one line, which saying " Oh, it has its triumphs." How can death have a triumph?

Okay, I will talk about more of things, if we didn't go over some of stuff.:)

The Nobel Prize in Literature 1996 was awarded to Wislawa Szymborska "for poetry that with ironic precision allows the historical and biological context to come to light in fragments of human reality".

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.