Wislawa Szymborska
Wisława Szymborska (Polish pronunciation: [vʲisˈwava ʂɨmˈbɔrska], born July 2, 1923 in Kórnik, Poland) is a Polish poet, essayist, and translator. She was awarded the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature. In Poland, her books reach sales rivaling prominent prose authors—although she once remarked in a poem entitled "Some like poetry" [Niektórzy lubią poezję] that no more than two out of a thousand people care for the art.
Szymborska frequently employs literary devices such as irony, paradox, contradiction, and understatement, to illuminate philosophical themes and obsessions. Szymborska's compact poems often conjure large existential puzzles, touching on issues of ethical import, and reflecting on the condition of people both as individuals and as members of human society. Szymborska's style is succinct and marked by introspection and wit.
Szymborska's reputation rests on a relatively small body of work: she has not published more than 250 poems to date. She is often described as modest to the point of shyness[citation needed]. She has long been cherished by Polish literary contemporaries (including Czesław Miłosz) and her poetry has been set to music by Zbigniew Preisner. Szymborska became better known internationally after she was awarded the 1996 Nobel Prize. Szymborska's work has been translated into many European languages, as well as into Arabic, Hebrew, Japanese and Chinese.
In 1931, Szymborska's family moved to Kraków. She has been linked with this city, where she studied, worked.
When World War II broke out in 1939, she continued her education in underground lessons. From 1943, she worked as a railroad employee and managed to avoid being deported to Germany as a forced labourer. It was during this time that her career as an artist began with illustrations for an English-language textbook. She also began writing stories and occasional poems.
Beginning in 1945, Szymborska took up studies of Polish language and literature before switching to sociology at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. There she soon became involved in the local writing scene, and met and was influenced by Czesław Miłosz. In March 1945, she published her first poem Szukam słowa ("I seek the word") in the daily paper Dziennik Polski; her poems continued to be published in various newspapers and periodicals for a number of years. In 1948 she quit her studies without a degree, due to her poor financial circumstances; the same year, she married poet Adam Włodek, whom she divorced in 1954. At that time, she was working as a secretary for an educational biweekly magazine as well as an illustrator.
During Stalinism in Poland in 1953 she participated in the defamation of Catholic priests from Kraków who were groundlessly condemned by the ruling Communists to death.[1] Her first book was to be published in 1949, but did not pass censorship as it "did not meet socialist requirements." Like many other intellectuals in post-war Poland, however, Szymborska remained loyal to the PRL official ideology early in her career, signing political petitions and praising Stalin, Lenin and the realities of socialism. This attitude is seen in her debut collection Dlatego żyjemy ("That is what we are living for"), containing the poems Lenin and Młodzieży budującej Nową Hutę ("For the Youth that Builds Nowa Huta"), about the construction of a Stalinist industrial town near Kraków. She also became a member of the ruling Polish United Workers' Party.
Like many Polish intellectuals initially close to the official party line, Szymborska gradually grew estranged from socialist ideology and renounced her earlier political work. Although she did not officially leave the party until 1966, she began to establish contacts with dissidents. As early as 1957, she befriended Jerzy Giedroyc, the editor of the influential Paris-based emigré journal Kultura, to which she also contributed. In 1964 s
“No one feels good at four in the morning.If ants feel good at four in the morning—three cheers for the ants.”
“The buzzard has nothing to fault himself with.Scruples are alien to the black panther.Piranhas do not doubt the rightness of their actions.The rattlesnake approves of himself without reservations.The self-critical jackal does not exist.The locust, alligator, trichina, horseflylive as they live and are glad of it.The killer whale's heart weighs one hundred kilosbut in other respects it is light.There is nothing more animal-likethan a clear conscienceon the third planet of the Sun.”
“I am who I am.A coincidence no less unthinkablethan any other.”
“Woods disguised as woods alive without end, and above them birds in flight play birds in flight.”
“But they know about us, they know,the four corners, and the chairs nearby us.Discerning shadows also know,and even the table keeps quiet.”
“...They'd be amazed to hear that Chance has been toying with them now for years. Not quite ready yet To become their Destiny, it pushed them close, drove them apart, it barred their path, stifling a laugh, and then leaped aside. There were signs and signals, Even if they couldn't read them yet. Perhaps three years ago or just last Tuesday a certain leaf fluttered from one shoulder to another? Something was dropped and then picked up. Who knows, maybe the ball that vanished into childhood's thicket? There were doorknobs and doorbells where one touch had covered another beforehand. Suitcases checked and standing side by side. One night, perhaps, the same dream, grown hazy by morning. Every beginning Is only a sequel, after all, and the book of events is always open halfway through.”
“Dying - you can't do that to a cat.”
“Let the people who never find true lovekeep saying that there's no such thing.Their faith will make it easier for them to live and die.”
“هیچ چیز دوبار اتفاق نمی افتد[ترجمهی مارک اسموژنسکی، شهرام شیدایی، چوکا چکاد]هیچ چیز دوبار اتفاق نمی افتدو اتفاق نخواهد افتاد. به همین دلیلناشی به دنیا آمده ایمو خام خواهیم رفت.حتا اگر کودن ترین شاگردِ مدرسه ی دنیا می بودیمهیچ زمستانی یا تابستانی را تکرار نمی کردیمهیچ روزی تکرار نمی شوددوشب شبیه ِ هم نیستدوبوسه یکی نیستندنگاه قبلی مثل نگاه بعدی نیستدیروز ، وقتی کسی در حضور مناسم تو را بلند گفتطوری شدم، که انگار گل رزی از پنجره ی بازبه اتاق افتاده باشد.امروز که با همیمرو به دیوار کردمرز! رز چه شکلی است؟آیا رز، گل است؟ شاید سنگ باشدای ساعت بد هنگامچرا با ترس بی دلیل می آمیزی؟هستی - پس باید سپری شویسپری می شوی- زیبایی در همین استهر دو خندان ونیمه در آغوش هممی کوشیم بتوانیم آشتی کنیمهر چند باهم متفاوتیممثل دو قطره ی آب زلال.”
“They're both convincedthat a sudden passion joined them.Such certainty is beautiful,but uncertainty is more beautiful still.Since they'd never met before, they're surethat there'd been nothing between them.But what's the word from the streets, staircases, hallways--perhaps they've passed by each other a million times?I want to ask themif they don't remember--a moment face to facein some revolving door?perhaps a "sorry" muttered in a crowd?a curt "wrong number" caught in the receiver?but I know the answer.No, they don't remember.They'd be amazed to hearthat Chance has been toying with themnow for years.Not quite ready yetto become their Destiny,it pushed them close, drove them apart,it barred their path,stifling a laugh,and then leaped aside.There were signs and signals,even if they couldn't read them yet.Perhaps three years agoor just last Tuesdaya certain leaf flutteredfrom one shoulder to another?Something was dropped and then picked up.Who knows, maybe the ball that vanishedinto childhood's thicket?There were doorknobs and doorbellswhere one touch had covered another beforehand.Suitcases checked and standing side by side.One night, perhaps, the same dream,grown hazy by morning.Every beginningis only a sequel, after all,and the book of eventsis always open halfway through.”
“Four billion people on this earthbut my imagination is still the same.It's bad with large numbers.It's still taken by particularity.It flits in the dark like a flashlight,illuminating only random faceswhile all the rest go by,never coming to mind and never really missed.”
“A Note Life is the only way to get covered in leaves, catch your breath on the sand, rise on wings; to be a dog, or stroke its warm fur; to tell pain from everything it's not; to squeeze inside events, dawdle in views, to seek the least of all possible mistakes. An extraordinary chance to remember for a moment a conversation held with the lamp switched off; and if only once to stumble upon a stone, end up soaked in one downpour or another, mislay your keys in the grass; and to follow a spark on the wind with your eyes; and to keep on not knowing something important.”
“Every beginning, after all, is nothing but a sequel, and the book of events is always open in the middle.”
“The Three Oddest WordsWhen I pronounce the word Future,the first syllable already belongs to the past.When I pronounce the word Silence,I destroy it.When I pronounce the word nothing,I make something no nonbeing can hold.”
“Loveless work, boring work, work valued only because others haven't got even that much, however loveless and boring--this is one of the harshest human miseries.”
“I'm one-time-only to the marrow of my bones.”
“I'm old-fashioned and think that reading books is the most glorious pastime that humankind has yet devised.”
“Somewhere out there the world must have an end.”
“Nothing has changed. The body is susceptible to pain,It must eat and breath air and sleep,It has thin skin and blood right underneath,An adequate stock of teeth and nails,Its bones are breakable, its joints are stretchable.In tortures all this is taken into account.Nothing has changed.The body shudders as it is shudderedBefore the founding of Rome and after,In the twentieth century before and after Christ.Tortures are as they were, it’s just the earth that’s grown smaller,And whatever happens seems on the other side of the wall.Nothing has changed.It’s just that there are more people,Besides the old offenses, new ones have appeared,Real, imaginary, temporary, and none,But the howl with which the body responds to them,Was, and is, and ever will be a howl of innocenceAccording to the time-honored scale and tonality.Nothing has changed.Maybe just the manners, ceremonies, dances,Yet the movement of the hands in protecting the head is the same.The body writhes, jerks, and tries to pull awayIts legs give out, it falls, the knees fly up,It turns blue, swells, salivates, and bleeds.Nothing has changed. Except of course for the course of boundaries, The lines of forests, coasts, deserts, and glaciers.Amid these landscapes traipses the soul,Disappears, comes back, draws nearer, moves away,Alien to itself, elusiveAt times certain, at others uncertain of its own existence,While the body is and is and isAnd has no place of its own.”