Poems of Wislawa Szymborska
War, Oppression, Suffering
with wood to chew on, drops beneath the bark to
drink –
a view served round the clock,
until you go blind. Above, a bird
Starvation Camp Near Jaslo
whose shadow flicked its nourishing wings
Write it down. Write it. With ordinary ink
teeth clattered.
across their lips. Jaws dropped,
on ordinary paper: they weren’t given any food,
they all died of hunger. All. How many?
At night a sickle glistened in the sky
per head? Write down: I don’t know.
Hands came flying from blackened icons,
It’s a large meadow. How much grass
and reaped the dark for dreamed-of loaves.
History rounds off skeletons to zero.
each holding an empty chalice.
A thousand and one is still only a thousand.
A man swayed
That one seems never to have existed:
a fictitious fetus, an empty cradle,
a primer opened for no one,
air that laughs, cries and grows,
stairs for a void bounding out to the garden,
no one’s spot in the ranks.
It became flesh right here, on this meadow.
But the meadow’s silent, like a witness who’s been
bought.
Sunny. Green. A forest close at hand,
on a grill of barbed wire.
Some sang, with dirt in their mouths. That lovely
song
about war hitting you straight in the heart.
Write how quiet it is.
Yes.
(from Salt 1962)
Ballad
1
Hear the ballad “Murdered Woman
Suddenly Gets Up from Chair.”
In the oven she burns traces
that the killer’s left behind:
here a picture, there shoelaces,
It’s an honest ballad, penned
everything that she can find.
neither to shock nor offend.
It’s obvious that she’s not strangled.
The thing happened fair and square,
It’s obvious that she’s not shot.
with curtains open, lamps all lit:
She’s been killed invisibly.
passersby could stop and stare.
She may still show signs of life,
cry for sundry silly reasons,
When the door had shut behind him
shriek in horror at the sight
and the killer ran downstairs
of a mouse.
she stood up, just like the living
startled by the sudden silence.
Ridiculous
traits are so predictable
that they aren’t hard to fake.
She gets up, she moves her head,
and she looks around with eyes
She got up like you and me.
harder than they were before.
She walks just as people do.
No, she doesn’t float through air:
she steps on the ordinary,
And she sings and combs her hair,
wooden, slightly creaky floor.
which still grows.
2
(from Salt 1962)
Around them, some gunshots, now nearer, now
Some People
above them a plane seems to circle.
Some people flee some other people.
Some invisibility would come in handy,
In some country under a sun
some grayish stoniness,
and some clouds.
or, better yet, some nonexistence
farther away,
for a shorter or a longer while.
They abandon something, close to all they’ve got,
sown fields, some chickens, dogs,
Something else will happen, only where and what.
mirrors in which fire now preens.
Someone will come at them, only when and who,
in how many shapes, with what intentions.
Their shoulders bear pitchers and bundles.
If he has a choice,
The emptier they get, the heavier they grow.
maybe he won’t be the enemy
and will let them live some sort of life.
What happens quietly: someone’s dropping from
exhaustion.
What happens loudly: someone’s bread is ripped
away,
some tries to shake a limp child back to life.
(from New Poems 1997)
Tortures
Nothing has changed.
Always another road ahead of them,
The body is a reservoir of pain;
always another wrong bridge
it has to eat and breathe the air, and sleep;
across an oddly reddish river.
it has thin skin and the blood is just beneath it;
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it has a good supply of teeth and fingernails;
Except perhaps the manners, ceremonies, dances.
stretched.
has nonetheless remained the same.
In tortures, all of this is considered.
The body writes, jerks and tugs,
its bones can be broken; it’s joints can be
The gesture of the hands shielding the head
falls to the ground when shoved, pulls up its knees,
Nothing has changed.
bruises, swells, drools and bleeds.
They body still trembles as it trembled
before Rome was founded and after,
Nothing has changed.
in the twentieth century before and after Christ.
Except the run of the rivers,
Tortures are just what they were, only the earth
the shape of forests, shores, deserts, and glaciers.
has shrunk
The little soul roams among those landscapes,
and whatever goes on sounds as if it’s just
a
room away.
disappears, returns, draws near, moves away,
evasive and a stranger to itself,
now sure, now uncertain of its own existence,
Nothing has changed.
whereas the body is and is and is
Except there are more people,
and has nowhere to go.
and new offenses have sprung up beside the old
ones –
real, make-believe, short-lived and nonexistent.
But the cry with which the body answers for them
(from The People on the Bridge 1986)
Still
was, is, and will be a cry of innocence
Across the country’s plains
in keeping with the age-old scale and pitch.
sealed boxcars are carrying names:
how long will they travel, how far,
Nothing has changed.
will they ever leave the boxcar –
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don’t ask, I can’t say, I don’t know.
just one tear, that’s a fact, just one tear.
Dark forest. The tracks disappear.
The name Nathan beats the wall with his fist,
the name Isaac sings a mad hymn,
That’s-a-fact. The rail and the wheels.
the name Aaron is dying of thirst,
That’s-a-fact. A forest, no fields.
the name Sarah begs water for him.
That’s-a-fact. And their silence once more,
that’s-a-fact, drums on my silent door.
Don’t jump from the boxcar, name David.
In these lands you’re a name to avoid,
you're bound for defeat, you’re a sign
(from Calling Out to Yeti 1957)
point out those who must be destroyed.
Discovery
At least give your son a Slavic name:
I believe in the great discovery.
he’ll need it. Here people count hairs
I believe in the man who will make the discovery.
and examine the shape of your eyelids
I believe in the fear of the man who will make the
to tell right from wrong, “ours” from “theirs.”
discovery.
Don’t jump yet. Your son’s name will be Lech.
I believe in his face going white,
Don’t jump yet. The time’s still not right.
his queasiness, his upper lip drenched in cold
Don’t jump yet. The clattering wheels
sweat.
are mocked by the echoes of night.
I belive in the burning of his notes,
Clouds of people passed over this plain.
burning them into ashes,
Vast clouds, but they held little rain –
burning them to the last scrap.
5
I believe in the scattering of numbers,
These words soar for me beyond all rules
scattering them without regret.
without seeking support from actual examples.
My faith is strong, blind and without foundation.
I believe in the man’s haste,
in the precision of his movements,
in his free will.
I believe in the shattering of tablets,
the pouring out of liquids,
the extinguishing of rays.
I am convinced this will end well,
that it will not be too late,
that it will take place without witnesses.
I’m sure no one will find out what happened,
not the wife, not the wall,
not even the bird that might squeal in its song.
I believe in the refusal to take part.
I believe in the ruined career.
I believe in the wasted years of work.
I believe in the secret taken to the grave.
(from Could Have 1972)
Photograph from September 11
BY WISŁAWA SZYMBORSKA 1923–2012
TRANSLATED BY CLARE
CAVANAGH AND STANISLAW BARANCZAK
They jumped from the burning floors—
one, two, a few more,
higher, lower.
The photograph halted them in life,
and now keeps them
above the earth toward the earth.
Each is still complete,
with a particular face
and blood well hidden.
6
There’s enough time
Well so they came to see me
for keys and coins
The story is he was on the passenger list.
to fall from pockets.
So what, he might have changed his mind.
for hair to come loose,
about it.
They gave me some pills so I wouldn’t fall apart.
They’re still within the air’s reach,
Then they showed me I don’t know who.
within the compass of places
All black, burned except one hand.
that have just now opened.
A scrap of shirt, a watch, a wedding ring.
I got furious, that can’t be him.
I can do only two things for them—
He wouldn’t do that to me, look like that.
describe this flight
The stores are bursting with those shirts.
and not add a last line.
The watch is just a regular old watch.
Wisł awa Szymborska, “Photograph from September
And our names on that ring,
11” from Monologue of a Dog. Copyright © 2005 by
they’re only the most ordinary names.
Wisł awa Szymborska. Reprinted with permission of
It’s good you came. Sit here beside me.
Harcourt, Inc.
He really was supposed to get back Thursday.
Source: Monologue of a Dog (Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt, 2005)
But we’ve got so many Thursdays left this year.
I’ll put the kettle on for tea.
I’ll wash my hair, then what,
Identification
BY WISŁAWA SZYMBORSKA
TRANSLATED FROM THE POLISH BY CLARE CAVANAGH
AND STANISLAW BARANCZAK
It’s good you came—she says.
You heard a plane crashed on Thursday?
try to wake up from all this.
It’s good you came, since it was cold there,
and him just in some rubber sleeping bag,
him, I mean, you know, that unlucky man.
I’ll put the Thursday on, wash the tea,
7
since our names are completely ordinary—
I felt age within me. Distance.
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/
I looked back setting my bundle down.
239944
I looked back not knowing where to set my foot.
Source: Poetry (September 2010).
The futility of wandering. Torpor.
Serpents appeared on my path,
Love, Human Connection
Lot’s Wife
They say I looked back out of curiosity.
But I could have had other reasons.
I looked back mourning my silver bowl.
Carelessly, while tying my sandal strap.
So I wouldn't have to keep staring at the righteous
nape
of my husband Lot's neck.
From the sudden conviction that if I dropped dead
he wouldn't so much as hesitate.
From the disobedience of the meek.
Checking for pursuers.
Struck by the silence, hoping God had changed his
mind.
Our two daughters were already vanishing over the
hilltop.
spiders, field mice, baby vultures.
They were neither good nor evil now - every living
thing
was simply creeping or hopping along in the mass
panic.
I looked back in desolation.
In shame because we had stolen away.
Wanting to cry out, to go home.
Or only when a sudden gust of wind
unbound my hair and lifted up my robe.
It seemed to me that they were watching from the
walls of Sodom
and bursting into thunderous laughter again and
again.
I looked back in anger.
To savor their terrible fate.
I looked back for all the reasons given above.
I looked back involuntarily.
It was only a rock that turned underfoot, growling at
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me.
The caught fish doesn't sing with my voice.
tracks.
I am too close. The great house is on fire
A hamster on its hind paws tottered on the edge.
without me calling for help. Too close
It was then we both glanced back.
for one of my hairs to turn into the rope
No, no. I ran on,
of the alarm bell. Too close to enter
I crept, I flew upward
as the guest before whom walls retreat.
until darkness fell from the heavens
I'll never die again so lightly,
and with it scorching gravel and dead birds.
so far beyond my body, so unknowingly
I couldn't breathe and spun around and around.
as I did once in his dream. I am too close,
Anyone who saw me must have thought I was
too close, I hear the word hiss
dancing.
and see its glistening scales as I lie motionless
It's not inconceivable that my eyes were open.
in his embrace. He's sleeping,
It's possible I fell facing the city.
more accessible at this moment to an usherette
It was a sudden crack that stopped me in my
(from A Large Number 1976)
I am too close …
The ring doesn't roll from my finger.
he saw once in a travelling circus with one lion,
than to me, who lies at his side.
A valley now grows within him for her,
rusty-leaved, with a snowcapped mountain at one
end
I am too close for him to dream of me.
rising in the azure air. I am too close
I don't flutter over him, don't flee him
to fall from that sky like a gift from heaven.
beneath the roots of trees. I am too close.
My cry could only waken him. And what
a poor gift: I, confined to my own form,
when I used to be a birch, a lizard
9
shedding times and satin skins
One day the answer came before the questions.
the gift of vanishing before astonished eyes,
by the type of silence in the dark.
in many shimmering hues. And I possessed
Another night they guessed their eye’s expression
which is the richest of all. I am too close,
too close for him to dream of me.
Gender fades, mysteries molder,
I slip my arm from underneath his sleeping head –
distinctions meet in all-resemblance
it's numb, swarming with imaginary pins.
just as all colours coincide in white.
A host of fallen angels perches on each tip,
waiting to be counted.
(from Salt 1962)
Which of them is doubled and which missing?
Which one is smiling with two smiles?
Whose voice forms a two-part canon?
When both heads nod, which one agrees?
Golden Anniversary
Whose gesture lifts the teaspoon to their lips?
They must have been different once,
Which one lives and which has died
fire and water, miles apart,
entangled in the lines of whose palm?
Who’s flayed the other one alive?
robbing and giving in desire,
that assault on one another’s otherness.
They gazed into each other’s eyes and slowly twins
Embracing, they appropriated and expropriated each
emerged.
other
Familiarity breeds the most perfect of mothers -
for so long
it favors neither of the little darlings,
that only air was left within their arms,
it scarcely can recall which one is which.
transparent as if after lightning.
On this festive day, their golden anniversary,
10
A dove, seen identically, perched on the windowsill.
into the mirror, but there’s nothing there
Without A Title
they see is the two people in the frame.
The two of them were left so long alone,
everything in between the ground and sky
so much in un-love, without a word to spare,
keeps close watch on the fates that we were born
what they deserve by now is probably
with
a miracle – a thunderbolt, or turning into stone.
and sees to it that they remain the same –
Two million books in print on Greek mythology,
although we still don’t see the reason why
but there’s no rescue in them for this pair.
a sudden deer bounding across this room
(from Salt 1962)
except their sensible reflections. All
Matter is on alert. All its dimensions,
would shatter the entire universe.
If at least someone would ring the bell, or if
something would flare and disappear again,
(from Salt 1962)
no matter from where and no matter when,
Existentialism Reprise
no matter if it’s fun, fear, joy or grief.
But nothing of the sort. No aberration,
no deviation from the well-made plot
this bourgeois drama holds. There’ll be a dot
above the “i” inside their tidy separation.
Against the backdrop of the steadfast wall,
pitying one another, they both stare
Birthday
So much world all at once – how it rustles and
bustles!
Moraines and morays and morasses and mussels,
the flame , the flamingo, the flounder, the feather –
how to line them all up, how to put them together?
All the thickets and crickets and creepers and
creeks!
11
The beeches and leeches alone could take weeks.
I’m bound to pass by all these poppies and
thanks so much, but all this excess of kindness
What a loss when you think how much effort was
could kill us.
spent
Where’s the jar for this burgeoning burdock, brooks’
perfecting this petal, this pistil, this scent
babble,
for the one-time appearance, which is all they’re
rooks' squabble, snakes’ squiggle, abundance, and
allowed,
trouble?
so aloofly, precise and so fragilely proud.
Chinchillas, gorillas, and sarsaparillas –
How to plug up the gold mines and pin down the
fox,
how to cope with the lynx, bobolinks, streptococs!
Take dioxide: a lightweight, but might in deeds’
pansies.
(from Could Have 1972)
Allegro Ma Non Troppo
what about octopodes, what about centipedes?
Life, you’re beautiful (I say)
I could look into prices, but don’t have the nerve:
you just couldn’t get more fecund,
these are products I just can’t afford, don’t deserve.
more befrogged or nightingaley,
Isn’t sunset a little too much for two eyes
more anthilful or sproutsprouting.
that, who knows, may not open to see the sun
rise?
I’m trying to court life’s favour,
I am just passing through, it’s a five minute stop.
to get into its good fraces,
I won’t catch what is distant; what’s too close, I’ll
to anticipate its whims.
mix up.
I’m always the first to bow,
While trying to plumb what the void’s inner sense
is,
always there where it can see me
with my humble, reverent face,
12
soaring on the wings of rapture,
falling under waves of wonder.
will it stop for me, just once,
momentarily forgetting
to what end it runs and runs?
Oh how grassy is this hopper,
How his berry ripely rasps.
I would never have conceived it
(from Could Have 1972)
if I weren’t conceived myself!
Nothing Twice
Life (I say) I’ve no idea
Nothing can ever happen twice.
what I could compare you to.
In consequence, the sorry fact is
No one else can make a pine cone
that we arrive here improvised
and then make the pine cone’s clone.
and leave without the chance to practice.
I praise your inventiveness,
Even if there is no one dumber,
bounty, sweep, exactitude,
and you’re the planets biggest dunce,
sense of order – gifts that border
you can’t repeat the class in summer:
on witchcraft and wizardry.
this course is only offered once.
I just don’t want to upset you,
No day copies yesterday,
tease or anger, vex or rile.
no two nights will teach what bliss is
For millennia, I’ve been trying
in precisely the same way,
to appease you with my smile.
with exactly the same kisses.
I tug at life by its leaf hem:
One day perhaps some idle tongue
13
mentions your name by accident:
I feel as if a rose were flung
Body without alterations.
Head without premeditation.
into the room, all hue and scent.
I know nothing of the role I play.
The next day, though you’re here with me,
I only know it’s mine, I can’t exchange it.
I can’t help looking at the clock:
A rose? A rose? What could that be?
I have to guess on the spot
Is it a flower or a rock?
just what this play’s all about.
Why do we treat the fleeting day
Ill-prepared for the privilege of living,
with so much needless fear and sorrow?
I can barely keep up with the pace that the action
It’s in its nature not to stay:
demands.
Today is always gone tomorrow.
I improvise, although I loathe improvisation.
I trip at every step over my own ignorance.
With smiles and kisses, we prefer
I can’t conceal my hayseed manners.
to seek accord beneath our star,
My instincts are for hammy histrionics.
although we’re different (we concur)
Stage fright makes excuses for me, which humiliate
just as two drops of water are.
me more.
(from Calling out to Yeti 1957)
Extenuating circumstances strike me as cruel.
Life While-You-Wait
Words and impulses you can’t take back,
Life While-You-Wait.
your character like a raincoat you button on the run
Performance without rehearsal.
stars you’ll never get counted,
–
14
the pitiful results of all this unexpectedness.
The Three Oddest Words
If I could just rehearse one Wednesday in advance,
When I pronounce the word Future,
or repeat a single Thursday that has passed!
the first syllable already belongs to the past.
But here comes Friday with a script I haven’t seen.
Is it fair, I ask
When I pronounce the word Silence,
(my voice a little hoarse,
I destroy it.
since I couldn’t even clear my throat offstage).
When I pronounce the word Nothing,
You’d be wrong to think that it’s just a slapdash
quiz
taken in makeshift accommodations. Oh no.
I’m standing on the set and I see how strong it is.
The props are surprisingly precise.
I make something no nonbeing can hold.
(from New Poems 1997)
Humor and The Wonder of the
World
The machine rotating the stage has been around
even longer.
The farthest galaxies have been turned on.
Oh no, there’s no question, this must be the
Ruben’s Women
premiere.
Titanettes, female fauna,
And whatever I do
naked as the rumbling of barrels.
will become forever what I’ve done.
They roost in rampled beds,
(from A Large Number 1976)
asleep, with mouths agape, ready to crow.
Their pupils have fled into flesh
and sound the glandular depths
15
from which yeast seeps into their blood.
The seventeenth, alas, holds nothing for the
unvoluptuous.
Daughters of the Baroque. Dough
thickens in troughs, baths steam, wines blush,
For even the sky bulges here
cloudy piglets careen across the sky,
with pudgy angles and a chubby god –
triumphant trumpets neigh the carnal alarm.
thick-whiskered Phoebus, on a sweaty steed,
riding straight into the seething bedchamber.
O pumpkin plump! O plumped-up corpulence
inflated double by disrobing
and tripled by your tumultuous poses!
O fatty dishes of love!
(from Salt 1962)
I’m Working on the World
I’m working on the world,
Their skinny sisters woke up earlier,
revised, improved edition,
before dawn broke and shone upon the painting.
featuring fun for fools,
And no one saw how they went single file
blues for brooders,
along the canvas’s unpainted side.
combs for bald pates,
tricks for old dogs.
Exiled by style. Only their ribs stood out.
With birdlike feet and palms, they strove
Here’s one chapter: The Speech
to take wing on their jutting shoulder blades.
of Animals and Plants.
Each species comes, of course,
The thirteenth century would have given them
with its own dictionary.
golden halos.
Even a simple “Hi there,”
The twentieth silver screens.
when traded with a fish,
16
makes both the fish and you
feel quite extraordinary.
the price that felons pay,
so don’t whine that it’s steep:
you’ll stay young if you’re good.
The long-suspected meanings
Suffering (Chapter Three)
of rustlings, chirps, and growls!
doesn’t insult the body.
Soliloquies of forests!
Death? It comes in your sleep,
The epic hoots of owls!
exactly as it should.
Those crafty hedgehogs drafting
aphorisms after dark,
When it comes, you’ll be dreaming
while we blindly believe
that you don’t need to breathe;
they’re sleeping in the park!
that breathless silence is
the music of the dark
Time (Chapter Two) retains
and it’s part of the rhythm
its sacred right to meddle
to vanish like a spark.
in each earthly affair.
Still, time’s unbounded power
Only a death like that. A rose
that makes a mountain crumble,
could prick you harder, I suppose;
moves seas, rotates a star,
you’d feel more terror at the sound
won’t be enough to tear
of petals falling to the ground.
lovers apart: they are
too naked, too embraced,
Only a world like that. To die
too much like timid sparrows.
just that much. And to live just so.
And all the rest is Bach’s fugue, played
Old age is, in my book,
for the time being
17
on a saw.
(from Calling out to Yeti 1957)
CLASSIFIEDS
I RESTORE lost love.
Act now! Special offer!
You lie on last year’s grass
bathed in sunlight to the chin
while winds of summers past
WHOEVER’S found out what location
caress your hair and seem
compassion (heart’s imagination)
to lead you in
can be contacted at these days,
For further details, write: “Dream.”
a dance.
is herewith urged to name the place;
and sing about it in full voice,
WANTED: someone to mourn
and dance like crazy and rejoice
the elderly who die
beneath the frail birth that appears
alone in old folks’ homes.
to be upon the verge of tears.
Applicants, don’t send forms
or birth certificates.
I TEACH silence
All papers will be torn,
in all languages
no receipts will be issued
through intensive examination of:
at this or later dates.
the starry sky,
the Sinanthropus’ jaws,
FOR PROMISES made by my spouse,
a grasshopper’s hop,
who’s tricked so many with his sweet
an infant’s fingernails,
colors and fragrances and sounds—
plankton,
dogs barking, guitars in the street—
a snowflake.
into believing that they still
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might conquer loneliness and fright,
That is what I mean to say. But I’ve forgotten
I cannot be responsible.
the word for walrus in French. And I’m not sure of
Mr. Day’s widow, Mrs. Night.
icicle and ax.
“La Pologne? La Pologne?
(from Calling out to Yeti 1957)
cold there?”
“Pas du tout,” I answer icily.
VOCABULARY
“La Pologne? La Pologne?
Isn’t it terribly
Isn’t it terribly
cold there?” she asked. and then sighed with relief.
So many countries have been turning up lately that
the safest thing to talk about is climate.
“Madame,” I want to reply, “my people’s
(from Salt 1962)
To My Heart, on Sunday
Thank you, my heart:
you don’t dawdle, you keep going
poets do all their writing in mittens. I don’t mean to
with no flattery or reward,
imply that they never remove them; they do,
just from inborn diligence.
indeed, if the moon is warm enough. In stanzas
composed of raucous whooping, for only such can
You get seventy credits a minute.
drown the windstorms’ constant roar, they glorify the
Each of your systoles
simple lives of our walrus herders. Our Classicists
shoves a little boat
engrave their odes with inky icicles on trampled
to open sea
snowdrifts. The rest, our Decadents, bewail their
to sail around the world.
fate with snowflakes instead of tears. He who
wishes to drown himself must have an ax at hand
Thank you, my heart:
to cut the ice. Oh, madame, dearest madame.”
time after time
19
you pluck me, separate even in sleep,
out of the whole.
You make sure I don’t dream my dreams
up to that final flight,
no wings required.
answered letters from ordinary people who wanted
to write poetry. Translated by Clare Cavanagh, they
appeared in slightly different form in our Journals
section earlier this year.
To Heliodor from Przemysl: “You write, ‘I know my
poems have many faults, but so what, I’m not
Thank you, my heart:
going to stop and fix them.’ And why is that, oh
I woke up again
Heliodor? Perhaps because you hold poetry so
and even though it’s Sunday,
sacred? Or maybe you consider it insignificant?
the day of rest,
Both ways of treating poetry are mistaken, and
the usual preholiday rush
what’s worse, they free the novice poet from the
continues underneath my ribs.
necessity of working on his verses. It’s pleasant
(from No End of Fun 1967)
ESSA Y
and rewarding to tell our acquaintances that the
bardic spirit seized us on Friday at 2:45 p.m. and
began whispering mysterious secrets in our ear with
such ardor that we scarcely had time to take them
How To (and How Not To) Write Poetry
down. But at home, behind closed doors, they
Advice for blocked writers and aspiring poets from
assiduously corrected, crossed out, and revised
a Nobel Prize winner’s newspaper column.
those otherworldly utterances. Spirits are fine and
BY WISŁAWA SZYMBORSKA
dandy, but even poetry has its prosaic side.”
published in the Polish newspaper Literary Life. In
To H.O. from Poznan, a would-be translator: “The
The following are selections from columns originally
these columns, famed poet Wislawa Szymborska
translator is obliged to be faithful not only to the
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text. He must also reveal the full beauty of the
happening on a day when nothing happens?”
completely as possible the epoch’s spirit and
To Boleslaw L-k. of Warsaw: “Your existential
style.”
pains come a trifle too easily. We’ve had enough
poetry while retaining its form and preserving as
despair and gloomy depths. ‘Deep thoughts,’ dear
To Grazyna from Starachowice: “Let’s take the
Thomas says (Mann, of course, who else), ‘should
wings off and try writing on foot, shall we?”
make us smile.’ Reading your own poem ‘Ocean,’
we found ourselves floundering in a shallow pond.
To Mr. G. Kr. of Warsaw: “You need a new pen.
You should think of your life as a remarkable
The one you’re using makes a lot of mistakes. It
adventure that’s happened to you. That is our only
must be foreign.”
advice at present.”
To Pegasus [sic] from Niepolomice: “You ask in
To Marek, also of Warsaw: “We have a principle
rhyme if life makes cents [sic]. My dictionary
that all poems about spring are automatically
answers in the negative.”
disqualified. This topic no longer exists in poetry. It
continues to thrive in life itself, of course. But these
To Mr. K.K. from Bytom: “You treat free verse as
are two separate matters.”
a free-for-all. But poetry (whatever we may say) is,
was, and will always be a game. And as every
To B.L. from the vicinity of Wroclaw: “The fear of
child knows, all games have rules. So why do the
straight speaking, the constant, painstaking efforts to
grown-ups forget?”
metaphorize everything, the ceaseless need to
prove you’re a poet in every line: these are the
To Puszka from Radom: “Even boredom should be
anxieties that beset every budding bard. But they
described with gusto. How many things are
are curable, if caught in time.”
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To Zb. K. of Poznan: “You’ve managed to squeeze
To Ula from Sopot: “A definition of poetry in one
more lofty words into three short poems than most
sentence—well. We know at least five hundred
poets manage in a lifetime: ‘Fatherland,’ ‘truth,’
definitions, but none of them strikes us as both
‘freedom,’ ‘justice’: such words don’t come cheap.
precise and capacious enough. Each expresses the
Real blood flows in them, which can’t be
taste of its own age. Inborn skepticism keeps us
counterfeited with ink.”
from trying our hand at our own. But we
remember Carl Sandburg’s lovely aphorism: ‘Poetry
To Michal in Nowy Targ: “Rilke warned young
is a diary kept by a sea creature who lives on land
poets against large sweeping topics, since those
and wishes he could fly.’ Maybe he’ll actually make
are the most difficult and demand great artistic
it one of these days?”
maturity. He counseled them to write about what
they see around them, how they live each day,
To L-k B-k of Slupsk: “We require more from a
what’s been lost, what’s been found. He
poet who compares himself to Icarus than the
encouraged them to bring the things that surround
lengthy poem enclosed reveals. Mr. B-k, you fail to
us into their art, images from dreams, remembered
reckon with the fact that today’s Icarus rises above
objects. ‘If daily life seems impoverished to you,’ he
a different landscape than that of ancient times. He
wrote, ‘don’t blame life. You yourself are to blame.
sees highways covered in cars and trucks, airports,
You’re just not enough of a poet to perceive its
runways, large cities, expansive modern ports, and
wealth.’ This advice may seem mundane and dim-
other such realia. Might not a jet rush past his ear
witted to you. This is why we called to our defense
at times?”
one of the most esoteric poets in world literature—
and just see how he praised so-called ordinary
To T.W., Krakow: “In school no time is spent, alas,
things!”
on the aesthetic analysis of literary works. Central
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themes are stressed along with their historical
any of the others personally known to us, nor
will not suffice for anyone wishing to become a
great under the unadulterated influence of hard
good, independent reader, let alone for someone
liquor. All good work arose in painstaking, painful
with creative ambitions. Our young correspondents
sobriety, without any pleasant buzzing in the head.
are often shocked that their poem about rebuilding
‘I’ve always got ideas, but after vodka my head
postwar Warsaw or the tragedy of Vietnam might
aches,’ Wyspianski said. If a poet drinks, it’s
not be good. They’re convinced that honorable
between one poem and the next. This is the stark
intentions preempt form. But if you want to become
reality. If alcohol promoted great poetry, then every
a decent cobbler, it’s not enough to enthuse over
third citizen of our nation would be a Horace at
human feet. You have to know your leather, your
least. Thus we are forced to explode yet another
tools, pick the right pattern, and so forth. . . . It
legend. We hope that you will emerge unscathed
holds true for artistic creation too.”
from beneath the ruins.”
To Mr. Br. K. of Laski: “Your poems in prose are
To E.L. in Warsaw: “Perhaps you could learn to
permeated by the figure of the Great Poet who
love in prose.”
context. Such knowledge is of course crucial, but it
indeed any other poet has ever written anything
creates his remarkable works in a state of alcoholic
euphoria. We might take a wild guess at whom you
To Esko from Sieradz: “Youth really is an intriguing
have in mind, but it’s not last names that concern
period in one’s life. If one adds writerly ambitions to
us in the final analysis. Rather, it’s the misguided
the difficulties of youth, one must possess an
conviction that alcohol facilitates the act of writing,
exceptionally strong constitution in order to cope. Its
emboldens the imagination, sharpens wits, and
components should include: persistence, diligence,
performs many other useful functions in abetting the
wide reading, curiosity, observation, distance toward
bardic spirit. My dear Mr. K., neither this poet, nor
oneself, sensitivity to others, a critical mind, a
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sense of humor, and an abiding conviction that the
must become before our eyes the discovery of that
luck than it’s had thus far. The efforts you’ve sent
must be shared by the readers. Otherwise, prose
signal only the desire to write and none of the
will stay prose, no matter how hard you work to
other virtues described above. You have your work
break your sentences into lines of verse. And
cut out for you.”
what’s worse, nothing happens afterwards.”
world deserves a) to keep existing, and b) better
room, and the emotion contained by that description
Originally Published: August 29, 2006
To Kali of Lodz: “‘Why’ is the most important word
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/article/178592
in this planet’s language, and probably in that of
other galaxies as well.”
Excerpt from
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/guide/
To Mr. Pal-Zet of Skarysko-Kam: “The poems
17:
you’ve sent suggest that you’ve failed to perceive a
SEPTEMB ER 2 0 10 D I SC U SSI O N GU I D E
key difference between poetry and prose. For
Verticism
example, the poem entitled ‘Here’ is merely a
modest prose description of a room and the
Dizzying highs in the September issue of Poetry.
furniture it holds. In prose such descriptions perform
Wislawa Szymborska’s “Identification” induces
a specific function: they set the stage for the action
another kind of vertigo, robbing us of our bearings
to come. In a moment the doors will open,
by ripping words from their established significations
someone will enter, and something will take place.
(a theme Michael Robbins explores in this
In poetry the description itself must ‘take place.’
issue’s review of Robert Hass). Szymborska—long a
Everything becomes significant, meaningful: the
student of tragedy and its psychological effects—
choice of images, their placement, the shape they
crafts a character ridden by denial after her
take in words. The description of an ordinary room
husband dies in a plane crash. To disbelieve the
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facts, the speaker must reject the meanings of
stories, names, and words. She says: “The story is
he was on the passenger list. So what, he might
have changed his mind.” As for the ring recovered
from her husband’s body, it bears their names, but
so what? “They’re only the most ordinary names.”
And then: “He really was supposed to get back
Thursday. / But we’ve got so many Thursdays left
this year.” Here the speaker seems to confuse the
particular with the serial, last Thursday from all the
Thursdays that follow: she misunderstands, or
reinvents, the meaning of “Thursday.” The
disorientation reaches its vertex, so to speak, in the
poem’s final lines: “I’ll put the Thursday on, wash
the tea, / since our names are completely ordinary—
” The poem ends with a dash, a disconcerting
blankness—rather like the absence that undoes the
speaker—to follow the nonsense into which her talk
has descended. Poems may never be so
disorienting as when their own words shift in
meaning.
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