In Memory of Wislawa Szymborska (1923 – 2012)

Note: poems' excerpts and 2 songs are at the end.

My favorite poetess, Wislawa Sz., died on 1.2.12 and, as a symbolic gesture to honor the deceased, I hope this post will help somebody discover her too. Szymborska's poetry has been very popular in Poland for a long time, but only after receiving Nobel Prize for Literature in 1996 she became one of the few famous abroad Polish poets. As expected, she wrote a lot about the horrors of WW2 and communism, which she initially supported, but later became disillusioned with, going from praising Lenin in "Lenin" to presenting Stalin as the abominable snowman in “Calling Out To Yeti’’, but the list of her topics only begins here. She beautifully wrote about man's place in the universe, love, evolution, contemporary issues (f.e. "Photograph from September 11"), nature and much more. Woody Allen said of the poet, “She is able to capture the pointlessness and sadness of life, but somehow still be affirmative.” (via The Huffington post). Boston.com gave another good description:

 "Both deeply political and playful, a poet who used humor in unforeseen ways. Her verse, seemingly simple, was subtle, deep and often hauntingly beautiful. She used simple objects and detailed observation to reflect on larger truths, often using everyday images — an onion, a cat wandering in an empty apartment, an old fan in a museum — to reflect on grand topics such as love, death and passing time."

Wislawa's language is simple, yet touching and profound. Since ideas dominate her poetry, it translates well and I enjoyed the work of Stanislaw Baranczak & Clare Cavanagh in "Poems New and Collected", who didn't try to force the rhymes (others did with "clumsy and banal" result), instead using the simplest English, which only made the poems more affective.

I am also glad to see in her verse the example both that Nobel Prize doesn't stand for "for intellectuals only" and that pop culture doesn't have to mean "sub standard". Polish rock singer Kora turned her poem “Nothing Twice’’ into a pop song, which was a 1994 hit in Poland, and the song "Today" from Pawel Zadlo's debut album "iNTRO" contains its' fragments too, this time fortunately in English (YouTube below) ("Today" lyrics). Imo, amateur song "The Speech at the Lost and Found" by Bogdan Zadlo is nice too (below) and I hope to see more songs in the future.

PAWEŁ ŻĄDŁO: TODAY

The Speech at the Lost and Found by Bogdan Zadlo

I tried to choose quotes, which would give some idea of her style and subjects, but, of course, couldn't include everything. Her Nobel speech can be read here. More poems – here.

( From Poems )