Szymborska was an intellectual poet – someone "who thinks about the world through poetry", according to the critic Jerzy Jarzebski – but also one whose style is not too obscure for the general reader. Her poems are often humorous descriptions of serious or delicate situations. I particularly like her Cat in an Empty Apartment, voicing the views of an offended cat whose owner fails to return, beginning with the line: "Die – you can't do that to a cat." Many years ago in Kraków, when I met Szymborska, she was cradling a cat in her lap and I still own a photograph of the scene.

Szymborska's many awards included the Kallenbach prize from the Koscielski Foundation (1990) and the Goethe prize (1991). When she won the Nobel prize, she announced that she would distribute the money to social projects, and also observed that two other Polish poets, Zbigniew Herbert and Tadeusz Rózewicz, might have been chosen, for they equally deserved it. Last year she received the Order of the White Eagle, one of the highest Polish official decorations. Several of Szymborska's books have been translated into English, the best selection being View With a Grain of Sand (1995).

Zachciało mu się szczęścia,
zachciało mu się prawdy,
zachciało mu się wieczności,
patrzcie go!

ledwie rozróżnił sen od jawy,
ledwie domyślił się, że on to on,
ledwie wystrugał rękę z płetwy
rodem krzesiwo i rakietę,
łatwy do utopienia w łyżce oceanu,
za mało nawet śmieszny,
żeby pustkę śmieszyć,
oczami tylko widzi,
uszami tylko słyszy,
rekordem jego mowy jest tryb warunkowy,
rozumem gani rozum,
słowem: prawie nikt,

ale wolność mu w głowie,
wszechwiedza i byt poza
niemądrym mięsem,
patrzcie go!

Bo przecież chyba jest,
naprawdę się wydarzył
pod jedna z gwiazd prowincjonalnych.
Na swój sposób żywotny
i wcale ruchliwy.
Jak na marnego wyrodka kryształu -
dość poważnie zdziwiony.
Jak na trudne dzieciństwo
w koniecznościach stada
nieźle już poszczególny.
Patrzcie go!

Tylko tak dalej,
dalej choć przez chwile,
bodaj przez mgnienie galaktyki malej!
Niechby się wreszcie z grubsza okazało,
czym będzie, skoro jest.

A jest - zawzięty.
Zawzięty, trzeba przyznać, bardzo.
Z tym kółkiem w nosie,
w tej todze,
w tym swetrze.
Sto pociech, bądź co bądź.
Niebożę.

Istny człowiek.

NO END OF FUN

So he's got to have happiness,
he's got to have truth, too,
he's got to have eternity
did you ever!

He has only just learned to tell dreams from waking;
only just realized that he is he;
only just whittled with his hand ne' fin
a flint, a rocket ship;
easily drowned in the ocean's teaspoon,
not even funny enough to tickle the void;
sees only with his eyes;
hears only with his ears;
his speech's personal best is the conditional;
he uses his reason to pick holes in reason.
In short, he's next to no one,
but his head's full of freedom, omniscience, and the Being
beyond his foolish meat -
did you ever!

For he does apparently exist.
He genuinely came to be
beneath one of the more parochial stars.
He's lively and quite active in his fashion.
His capacity for wonder is well advanced
for a crystal's deviant descendant.
And considering his difficult childhood
spent kowtowing to the herd's needs,
he's already quite an individual indeed -
did you ever!

Carry on, then, if only for the moment
that it takes a tiny galaxy to blink!
One wonders what will become of him,

since he does in fact seem to be.
And as far as being goes, he really tries quite hard.
Quite hard indeed - one must admit.
With that ring in his nose, with that toga, that sweater.
He's no end of fun, for all you say.
Poor little beggar.
A human, if ever we saw one.

Translated by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh