Classic Poetry Series Wislawa Szymborska - poems - Publication Date: 2012 Publisher: Poemhunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive Wislawa Szymborska(2 July 1923 – 1 February 2012) Wislawa Szymborska-Wlodek [vi'swava ??m'b?rska] a Polish poet, essayist, translator and recipient of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature. Born in Prowent, which has since become part of Kórnik, she later resided in Kraków until the end of her life. She was described as a "Mozart of Poetry". In Poland, Szymborska's books have reached sales rivaling prominent prose authors: although she once remarked in a poem, "Some Like Poetry" ("Niektórzy lubia poezje"), that no more than two out of a thousand people care for the art. Szymborska was awarded the 1996 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". She became better known internationally as a result of this. Her work has been translated into English and many European languages, as well as into Arabic, Hebrew, Japanese and Chinese. <b>Life</b> Wislawa Szymborska was born on 2 July 1923 in Prowent, Poland (present-day Bnin, Kórnik, Poland), the daughter of Wincenty and Anna Szymborski. Her family moved to Kraków in 1931 where she lived and worked until her death in early 2012. When World War II broke out in 1939, she continued her education in underground classes. 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 Czeslaw Milosz. In March 1945, she published her first poem Szukam slowa (Looking for a 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 Wlodek, whom she divorced in 1954. The union was childless. Around the time of her marriage she was working as a secretary for an educational biweekly magazine as well as an illustrator. www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 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 Joseph Stalin, Vladimir Lenin and the realities of socialism. This attitude is seen in her debut collection Dlatego zyjemy (That is what we are living for), containing the poems "Lenin" and "Mlodziezy budujacej Nowa Hute" ("For the Youth who are building Nowa Huta"), about the construction of a Stalinist industrial town near Kraków. She became a member of the ruling Polish United Workers' Party. Like many communist 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, she opposed a Communist-backed protest to The Times against independent intellectuals, demanding freedom of speech instead. In 1953, she joined the staff of the literary review magazine Zycie Literackie (Literary Life), where she continued to work until 1981 and from 1968 ran her own book review column entitled Lektury Nadobowiazkowe (Non-compulsory Reading). Many of her essays from this period were later published in book form. From 1981-83, Szymborska was an editor of the Kraków-based monthly periodical, Pismo. During the 1980s, she intensified her oppositional activities, contributing to the samizdat periodical Arka under the pseudonym "Stanczykówna", as well as to Kultura in Paris. Szymborska translated French literature into Polish, in particular Baroque poetry and the works of Agrippa d'Aubigné. In Germany, Szymborska was associated with her translator Karl Dedecius, who did much to popularize her works there. <b>Death</b> Wislawa Szymborska died 1 February 2012 at home in Kraków, aged 88. Her manager Michal Rusinek confirmed the information and said that she "died peacefully, in her sleep". She was surrounded by friends and relatives at the time. Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski described her death on Twitter as an "irrepairable loss to Poland's culture". She was working on new poetry right until her death, though she was unable to arrange her final efforts for a book in the way she would have wanted. Her last poetry will be published later in 2012. <b>Themes</b> www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 2 Szymborska frequently employed literary devices such as irony, paradox, contradiction and understatement, to illuminate philosophical themes and obsessions. Many of her poems feature war and terrorism. In "Calling out to the Yeti" (1957), she compared Joseph Stalin to the abominable snowman. She wrote from unusual points of view, such as a cat in the newly empty apartment of its dead owner. Her reputation rests on a relatively small body of work, fewer than 350 poems. When asked why she had published so few poems, she said: "I have a trash can in my home". <b>Pop Culture<b> Szymborska's poem "Nothing Twice" turned into a song by composer Andrzej Munkowski performed by Lucja Prus in 1965 makes her poetry known in Poland, rock singer Kora cover of "Nothing Twice" was a hit in 1994. The poem "Love At First Sight" was used in the film Turn Left, Turn Right, starring Takeshi Kaneshiro and Gigi Leung. Three Colors: Red, a film directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski, was inspired by Szymborska's poem, "Love At First Sight". <b>Awards<b> 1954: The City of Kraków Prize for Literature 1963: The Polish Ministry of Culture Prize 1991: The Goethe Prize 1995: The Herder Prize 1995: Honorary Doctor of the Adam Mickiewicz University (Poznan) 1996: The Polish PEN Club prize 1996: Nobel Prize for Literature 2011: Order of the White Eagle www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 3 A Few Words On The Soul We have a soul at times. No one’s got it non-stop, for keeps. Day after day, year after year may pass without it. Sometimes it will settle for awhile only in childhood’s fears and raptures. Sometimes only in astonishment that we are old. It rarely lends a hand in uphill tasks, like moving furniture, or lifting luggage, or going miles in shoes that pinch. It usually steps out whenever meat needs chopping or forms have to be filled. For every thousand conversations it participates in one, if even that, since it prefers silence. Just when our body goes from ache to pain, it slips off-duty. It’s picky: it doesn’t like seeing us in crowds, our hustling for a dubious advantage and creaky machinations make it sick. Joy and sorrow aren’t two different feelings for it. www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 4 It attends us only when the two are joined. We can count on it when we’re sure of nothing and curious about everything. Among the material objects it favors clocks with pendulums and mirrors, which keep on working even when no one is looking. It won’t say where it comes from or when it’s taking off again, though it’s clearly expecting such questions. We need it but apparently it needs us for some reason too. translated from the Polish by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh DUSZA Dusz&#281; si&#281; miewa. Nikt nie ma jej bez przerwy i na zawsze. Dzie&#324; za dniem,rok za rokiem mo&#380;e bez niej min&#261;&#263;. Czasem tylko w zachwytach i l&#281;kach dzieci&#324;stwa zagnie&#380;d&#380;a si&#281; na d&#322;u&#380;ej. Czasem tylko w zdziwieniu, &#380;e jeste&#347;my starzy. Rzadko nam asystuje podczas zaj&#281;&#263; &#380;mudnych, jak przesuwanie mebli, d&#378;wiganie walizek, www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 5 czy przemierzanie drogi w ciasnych butach. Przy wype&#322;nianiu ankiet i siekaniu mi&#281;sa z regu&#322;y ma wychodne. Na tysi&#261;c naszych rozmów uczestniczy w jednej a i to niekoniecznie, bo woli milczenie. Kiedy cia&#322;o zaczyna nas bole&#263; i bole&#263;, cichcem schodzi z dy&#380;uru. Jest wybredna:niech&#281;tnie widzi nas w t&#322;umie, mierzi j&#261; nasza walka o byle przewag&#281; i terkot interesów. Rado&#347;&#263; i smutek to nie s&#261; dla niej dwa ró&#380;ne uczucia. Tylko w ich po&#322;&#261;czeniu jest przy nas obecna. Mo&#380;emy na ni&#261; liczy&#263; kiedy niczego nie jeste&#347;my pewni, a wszystkiego ciekawi. Z przedmiotów materialnych lubi zegary z wahad&#322;em i lustra, które pracuj&#261; gorliwie, nawet gdy nikt nie patrzy. Nie mówi sk&#261;d przybywa i kiedy znowu nam zniknie, ale wyra&#378;nie czeka na takie pytania. Wygl&#261;da na to, &#380;e tak jak ona nam, równie&#380; i my jeste&#347;my jej na co&#347; potrzebni. Wislawa Szymborska www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 6 A Great Man's House It was written in marble in golden letters: here a great man lived and worked and died. He laid the gravel for these paths personally. This bench — do not touch — he chiseled by himself out of stone. And — careful, three steps — we're going inside. He made it into the world at just the right time. Everything that had to pass, passed in this house. Not in a high rise, not in square feet, furnished yet empty, amidst unknown neighbors, on some fifteenth floor, where it's hard to drag school field trips. In this room he pondered, in this chamber he slept, and over here he entertained guests. Portraits, an armchair, a desk, a pipe, a globe, a flute, a worn-out rug, a sun room. From here he exchanged nods with his tailor and shoemaker who custom made for him. This is not the same as photographs in boxes, dried out pens in a plastic cup, a store-bought wardrobe in a store-bought closet, a window, from which you can see clouds better than people. Happy? Unhappy? That's not relevant here. He still confided in his letters, without thinking they would be opened on their way. He still kept a detailed and honest diary, without the fear that he would lose it during a search. The passing of a comet worried him most. www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 7 The destruction of the world was only in the hands of God. He still managed not to die in the hospital, behind a white screen, who knows which one. There was still someone with him who remembered his muttered words. He partook of life as if it were reusable: he sent his books to be bound; he wouldn't cross out the last names of the dead from his address book. And the trees he had planted in the garden behind the house grew for him as Juglans regia and Quercus rubra and Ulmus and Larix and Fraxinus excelsior. Translated, from the Polish, by Joanna Trzeciak Wislawa Szymborska www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 8 A 'Thank You' Note There is much I owe to those I do not love. The relief in accepting they are closer to another. Joy that I am not the wolf to their sheep. My peace be with them for with them I am free, and this, love can neither give, nor know how to take. I don't wait for them from window to door. Almost as patient as a sun dial, I understand what love does not understand. I forgive what love would never have forgiven. Between rendezvous and letter no eternity passes, only a few days or weeks. My trips with them always turn out well. Concerts are heard. Cathedrals are toured. Landscapes are distinct. And when seven rivers and mountains come between us, they are rivers and mountains well known from any map. It is thanks to them that I live in three dimensions, in a non-lyrical and non-rhetorical space, with a shifting, thus real, horizon. They don't even know how much they carry in their empty hands. 'I don't owe them anything', love would have said on this open topic. www.PoemHunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive 9