Wisława Szymborska Dies

On Wednesday evening Wisława Szymborska, one of the world’s greatest poets, winner of the 1996 Nobel Prize for Literature, passed away, her private secretary Michał Rusinek has announced. She died peacefully in her sleep.

Wisława Szymborska was born on 2 July 1923 but her exact place of birth is unknown. Although her birth certificate records it as Bnin, according to family legend she was born in neighbouring Kórnik. The Szymborski family later moved from the Wielkopolski province to Kraków.

Szymborska’s first publication was the poem “I Am Looking For The Word” which appeared in a supplement to the daily newspaper Dziennik Polski. Her first published collection of verse was That’s Why We Are Alive (1952). According to the critics, it was not until her next collection, Calling to the Yeti, was published in 1957 that she made her real appearance on the literary scene, as only now were the characteristic features of her poetry fully in evidence, including the aphoristic nature of her writing and her use of paradox as a vehicle for rhetoric.

Her successive collections were then: Salt (1962), No End of Fun (1967), Could Have (1972), A Large Number (1976), People on the Bridge (1986), The End and the Beginning (1993), Moment (2002), Colon (2005) and Here (2008).

In their justification for awarding Szymborska the 1996 Nobel Prize for Literature, the members of the Swedish Academy wrote that the prize was being awarded "for poetry that with ironic precision allows the historical and biological context to come to light in fragments of human reality".

"Epitaph" by Wisława Szymborska

Here lies, oldfashioned as parentheses,
The authoress of verse. Eternal rest
was granted her by earth, although the corpse
had failed to join the avant-garde, of course.
The plain grave? There’s poetic justice in it,
this ditty-dirge, the owl, the meek cornflower.
Passerby, take your PC out, press “POWER”,
Think on Szymborska’s fate for half a minute.

- translated by Stanisław Barańczak and Clare Cavanagh

Branka,

Very sad news.

What a wonderful contribution to the world this person made.

Your tribute is lovely.

Roger

Quote:

Branka,

Very sad news.

What a wonderful contribution to the world this person made.

Your tribute is lovely.

Roger

The Turn of the Century

It was supposed to be better than the others, our 20th century,

But it won't have time to prove it.

Its years are numbered,

its step unsteady,

its breath short.

Already too much has happened

that was not supposed to happen.

What was to come about

has not.

Spring was to be on its way,

and happiness, among other things.

Fear was to leave the mountains and valleys.

The truth was supposed to finish before the lie.

Certain misfortunes

were never to happen again

such as war and hunger and so forth.

These were to be respected:

the defenselessness of the defenseless,

trust and the like.

Whoever wanted to enjoy the world

faces an impossible task.

Stupidity is not funny.

Wisdom isn't jolly.

Hope

Is no longer the same young girl

et cetera. Alas.

God was at last to believe in man:

good and strong,

but good and strong

are still two different people.

How to live--someone asked me this in a letter,

someone I had wanted

to ask that very thing.

Again and as always,

and as seen above

there are no questions more urgent

than the naive ones.