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Branka Babic

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RE: Wislawa Szymborska, Nobel-prize winning Polish poet, dies at 88
2/19/2012 9:03:26 PM

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Branka Babic

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RE: Wislawa Szymborska, Nobel-prize winning Polish poet, dies at 88
2/22/2012 4:56:15 PM

PSALM


golden meadow
(Polish Golden Autumn)


Oh, the leaky boundaries of man-made states!
How many clouds float past them with impunity;
how much desert sand shifts from one land to another;
how many mountain pebbles tumble onto foreign soil
in provocative hops!

Need I mention every single bird that flies in the face of frontiers
or alights on the roadblock at the border?
A humble robin - still, its tail resides abroad
while its beak stays home. If that weren't enough, it won't stop
bobbing!

Among innumerable insects, I'll single out only the ant
between the border guard's left and right boots
blithely ignoring the questions "Where from?" and "Where to?"


Oh, to register in detail, at a glance, the chaos
prevailing on every continent!
Isn't that a privet on the far bank
smuggling its hundred-thousandth leaf across the river?
And who but the octopus, with impudent long arms,
would disrupt the sacred bounds of territorial waters?

And how can we talk of order overall
when the very placement of the stars
leaves us doubting just what shines for whom?

Not to speak of the fog's reprehensible drifting!
And dust bowling all over the steppes
as if they hadn't been partitioned!
And the voices coasting on obliging airwaves,
that conspiratorial squeaking, those indecipherable mutters!

Only what is human can truly be foreign.
The rest is mixed vegetation, subversive moles, and wind.




(Translated by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh)
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Branka Babic

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RE: Wislawa Szymborska, Nobel-prize winning Polish poet, dies at 88
2/22/2012 5:09:01 PM

Still

In sealed box cars travel
names across the land,
and how far they will travel so,
and will they ever get out,
don't ask, I won't say, I don't know.

The name Nathan strikes fist against wall,
the name Isaac, demented, sings,
the name Sarah calls out for water for
the name Aaron that's dying of thirst.

Don't jump while it's moving, name David.
You're a name that dooms to defeat,
given to no one, and homeless,
too heavy to bear in this land.

Let your son have a Slavic name,
for here they count hairs on the head,
for here they tell good from evil
by names and by eyelids' shape.

Don't jump while it's moving. Your son will be Lech.
Don't jump while it's moving. Not time yet.
Don't jump. The night echoes like laughter
mocking clatter of wheels upon tracks.

A cloud made of people moved over the land,

a big cloud gives a small rain, one tear,
a small rain--one tear, a dry season.
Tracks lead off into black forest.

Cor-rect, cor-rect clicks the wheel. Gladeless forest.

Cor-rect, cor-rect. Through the forest a convoy of clamors.
Cor-rect, cor-rect. Awakened in the night I hear
cor-rect, cor-rect, crash of silence on silence.



.
Polish Golden Autumn

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Branka Babic

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RE: Wislawa Szymborska, Nobel-prize winning Polish poet, dies at 88
2/23/2012 6:25:01 PM
Et Branka,HEY BRANKA, I HAVE ARRIVED IN WARSAW stigao sam Versavu , AND DID WHAT YOU HAVE ASKED ME TO DO.i kako si Zella od mene,I WAS SCREAMING OUT: HEY POLES, vikao sam, Hey Polci, BIG HI from Branka BabicVeliki Hi od Branke Babica IN MEMORIES OF ONE POLE u uspomeni od jednom Polaka WHO ONCE WAS HER BIG LOVEkoje je bio njezn drag jednom AND SHE WILL REMEMBER HIM FOREVERI da jos njega se veseeno sjeca, GREETINGS FROM ME FROM WARSAW I pozdrav od mene iz Vrsave, Abdul
· · · about a minute ago near Powisle, Warszawa


  • You like this.
    • Branka Babić Evo sam se rasplakala!!! YOU MADE ME CRY!!! YOU HAVE ONE GREAT BIG HUG FROM ME FOR DOING THAT :). HVALA, PUNO HVALA! Thank you,thank you very much! Zelim Ti puno uspjeha!I wish you a big success!

    -----------------------------------

  • This man (Abdul Kader Diab) is my friend Mico's roommate from their students days, originally from Abhu Dabi, went to Warszaw for a business trip,asked by me to say ONE WARM HI to Polska, in memories on my big love :).

With a few words about this my love, I have started this thread, and as I already said, he has opened the doors of my life to Wislawa Szymborska.


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Branka Babic

713
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RE: Wislawa Szymborska, Nobel-prize winning Polish poet, dies at 88
2/24/2012 9:32:00 PM

Poetry Daily featured poetWislawa Szymborska:







Poetry Daily featured book
About Monologue of a Dog: In this collection of contemplative, witty, and always surprising poems, Wislawa Szymborska writes with verve about everything from love unremembered to keys mislaid in the grass, from small-scale naughtiness to the happiness of skating on thin ice, from the district firemen's ball to the cosmos. Hers is an odd perspective, recorded with sparkling intelligence and a rare intensity of feeling.

Another gift of remarkable poetry that will delight new and old readers alike.

"Szymborska knows when to be clear and when to be mysterious. She knows which cards to turn over and which ones to leave facedown. Her simple, relaxed language dares to let us know exactly what she is thinking, and because her imagination is so lively and far-reaching — acrobatic, really — we are led, almost unaware, into the intriguing and untranslatable realms that lie just beyond the boundaries of speech."
Billy Collins, from the Foreword

Praise for Wislawa Szymborska

"She teaches us how the world defies and evades the names we give it."
Edward Hirsch

"Accessible and deeply human... a poet to live with."
Robert Hass

"Not only one of the finest poets living today, but also one of the most readable."
Charles Simic

"A subtle, even a subversive muse of vulnerability and a great European poet."
Richard Howard
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