{"id":8760,"date":"2023-06-30T16:27:13","date_gmt":"2023-06-30T14:27:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/?p=8760"},"modified":"2024-12-16T18:44:50","modified_gmt":"2024-12-16T17:44:50","slug":"wislawa-szymborska-an-eulogist-of-the-ordinary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2023\/06\/30\/wislawa-szymborska-an-eulogist-of-the-ordinary\/","title":{"rendered":"Wis\u0142awa\u00a0Szymborska, an Eulogist of the ordinary"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Polish Poetry Unites<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0is a video series complementing our\u00a0Encounters with Polish Literature<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0series for anyone interested in literature, poetry in particular, history, and reading.\u00a0In each episode,\u00a0Edward Hirsch<\/strong><\/a>, a distinguished American poet, and the president of the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, will introduce a celebrated Polish poet to American audiences. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nhttps:\/\/youtu.be\/Ev05O-a-Do8\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The seventh episode is devoted to Wis\u0142awa Szymborska<\/strong><\/a> (1923-2011) <\/strong>who was first Polish woman and the ninth woman in the world to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. We celebrate her centennial this year. The celebrations are coordinated worldwide by The Wis\u0142awa Szymborska Foundation<\/strong><\/a> in Krak\u00f3w.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201c<\/strong>Wis\u0142awa Szymborska is a marvelous Polish poet, a major 20th century Polish poet.<\/em>\u201d \u2013 starts his introduction Edward Hirsch. \u201cShe belongs to the half generation after Mi\u0142osz<\/strong><\/a>, the generation of Herbert<\/strong><\/a> and R\u00f3\u017cewicz<\/strong><\/a>, which means that she lived through two totalitarianisms: the German occupation first, the Soviet occupation second and I think that this gave her a kind of allergy to collectivist thinking.<\/em>„<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She refuses all collectivist ideas. She speaks only of the individual, the \u201cI.\u201d She doesn’t speak for the \u201cwe.\u201d And she is also very aware of the limitations of the sensibility of the individual… Throughout her work, which is extremely witty, there is a great awareness of cruelty and evil… There was a sense that the world was coming to an end, and yet the world did not come to an end, somehow after every catastrophe, the world still manages to survive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Against this sense of radical contingency of destruction that can come at any time, at any moment, Hirsch highly recommend her poem \u201cCould have.\u201d It could have happened, it might have happened, it had to happen. She\u2019s really writing a poetry of the close shave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Against this idea of our radical mortality there is also a sense of the staying power of art. The art of writing, the art of painting, the art of music as tremendous miracles of human creation. She has a sense also of what she calls „the miracle fare of life” which is daily life and how daily life somehow continues to reimagine itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hirsch likes to mention than not many people know that Szymborska also made wonderful collages which she sent to friends. The postcards in communist Poland were so bland that she refused to use them. Instead she used the ones she made herself which were very witty and funny. Her collages are very witty and insightful. Especially the one she sent to Umberto Eco<\/strong><\/a>, with a woman from the 19th<\/sup> century looking at this wonderful orange sun set. It is very evocative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hirsch says „I knew her a little. I interviewed her after she won the Nobel Prize, for the New York Times Magazine. But I knew her well enough to say that she would love this high school girl in the film about Vermeer<\/strong><\/a>, who is going blind and loves Szymborska\u2019s poem \u201cVermeer\u201d and Vermeer himself.<\/em>„<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
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Johannes Vermeer, The Milkmaid (c. 1660). Oil on canvas. Source: The Rijksmuseum.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This poem, \u201cVermeer,\u201d gives you a sense in just one moment of what is so marvelous about human experience, as it gets transformed into art. Because somehow through the miraculous transformation of art Vermeer captures a moment of a milk maid pouring milk out of a jug that will last forever. This moment of the everyday has a kind of radiance. It is captured first by Vermeer, then it is transformed into Szymborska\u2019s marvelous little poem. And then this wonderful blind high school girl finds this poem, recites it aloud and three imaginations come together: Vermeer\u2019s, Szymborska’s, and hers.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n
\n
\n

Vermeer<\/em><\/strong>
by Wis\u0142awa Szymborska<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dop\u00f3ki ta kobieta z Rijksmuseum
w namalowanej ciszy i skupieniu
mleko z dzbanka do miski
dzie\u0144 po dniu przelewa,
nie zas\u0142uguje \u015awiat
na koniec \u015bwiata.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

\n

Vermeer<\/em><\/strong>
by Wis\u0142awa Szymborska
translated from Polish by Clare Cavanagh and Stanislaw Baranczak<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So long as that woman from the Rijksmuseum
in painted quiet and concentration
keeps pouring milk day after day
from the pitcher to the bowl
the World hasn\u2019t earned
the world\u2019s end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Source: The New York Review of Books<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

If you are interested more in Wis\u0142awa Szymborska and her oeuvre please listen to this previous episode of our monthly series \u201cEncounters with Polish Literature\u201d on Wis\u0142awa Szymborska<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=g7QgAuBRiq8\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In this episode David A. Goldfarb speak with Szymborska\u2019s current main English-language translator, Clare Cavanagh, about what it was like to work with Szymborska, and they look at several of her poems from her earliest work in the late 1940s and early \u201850s, to her political shift marked by the collection, Calling Out to Yeti<\/em>, to later works including a personal perspective on her very popular \u201cCat in an Empty Apartment.\u201d They also touch upon her love of kitsch, her fascination with boxing, and look at a few of her collages. Toward the end of the discussion they offer a tribute to the editor, Drenka Willen, who championed literature in translation during her long career at Harcourt, and helped many great international writers, including Wis\u0142awa Szymborska, reach wide audiences in English and go on to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Wis\u0142awa Szymborska<\/strong>, (born July 2, 1923, Bnin [now part of K\u00f3rnik], Poland\u2014died February 1, 2012, Krak\u00f3w), Polish poet whose intelligent and empathic explorations of philosophical, moral, and ethical issues won her the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1996.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Szymborska\u2019s father was the steward on a count\u2019s family estate. When she was eight, the family moved to Krak\u00f3w, and she attended high school there. Between 1945 and 1948 she studied literature and sociology at Krak\u00f3w\u2019s Jagiellonian University. Her first published poem, \u201cSzukam s\u0142owa\u201d (\u201cI Seek the Word\u201d), appeared in a Krak\u00f3w newspaper in March 1945. Dlatego \u017cyjemy (1952; \u201cThat\u2019s Why We Are Alive\u201d), her first volume of poetry, was an attempt to conform to Socialist Realism, the officially approved literary style of Poland\u2019s communist regime. In 1953 she joined the editorial staff of \u017bycie Literackie (\u201cLiterary Life\u201d), a weekly magazine of intellectual interests, and remained there until 1981. During this period she gained a reputation not only as a poet but also as a book reviewer and translator of French poetry. In the 1980s she wrote for the underground press under the pseudonym Stanczyk\u00f3wna and also wrote for a magazine in Paris.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Between 1952 and 1993 Szymborska published more than a dozen volumes of poetry. She later disowned the first two volumes, which contain poems in the style of Socialist Realism, as not indicative of her true poetic intentions. Her third volume, Wo\u0142anie do Yeti (1957; \u201cCalling Out to Yeti\u201d), marked a clear shift to a more personal style of poetry and expressed her dissatisfaction with communism (Stalinism in particular). Subsequent volumes, such as S\u00f3l (1962; \u201cSalt\u201d), Sto pociech (1967; \u201cNo End of Fun\u201d), and Wszelki wypadek (1972; \u201cCould Have\u201d), contain poems noteworthy for their precise, concrete language and ironic detachment. Selections of her poems were translated into English and published in such collections as Sounds, Feelings, Thoughts: Seventy Poems (1981), People on a Bridge: Poems (1990), View with a Grain of Sand (1995), Monologue of a Dog (2005), and Here (2010).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biography source: Britannica.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Selected works by Wis\u0142awa Szymborska<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Map: Collected and Last Poems<\/a><\/em><\/strong>. <\/em>Tr. Stanis\u0142aw Bara\u0144czak and Clare Cavanagh. New York: Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt, 2015.
Miracle Fair: Selected Poems of Wislawa Szymborska<\/strong><\/a><\/em>. Tr. Joanna Trzeciak. New York:  W.W. Norton, 2002.
Monologue of a Dog<\/strong><\/a><\/em>. Tr. Stanis\u0142aw Bara\u0144czak and Clare Cavanagh. Foreword by Billy Collins New York: Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt, 2015.
Nonrequired Reading: Prose Pieces<\/strong><\/a><\/em>. Tr. Clare Cavanagh. New York: Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt, 2015.
How to Start Writing (And When to Stop)<\/strong><\/a>.<\/em> Tr. Clare Cavanagh. New York: New Directions, 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additional Resources:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Wis\u0142awa Szymborska Foundation<\/strong><\/a>
Wis\u0142awa Szymborska Nobel Prize page<\/strong><\/a>
Wis\u0142awa Szymborska page at the Academy of American Poets site<\/strong><\/a>
Wis\u0142awa Szymborska page at the Poetry Foundation<\/strong><\/a>
Wis\u0142awa Szymborska & the Poetry of Existence<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Moderator: Edward Hirsch<\/em>
Writer and Director: Ewa Zadrzy\u0144ska
Cinematography: Jacek Mieros\u0142awski
Editor: Anna J\u0119drzejewska
Curator and Executive Producer: Bartek Remisko<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n
\n
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Edward Hirsch<\/a><\/strong> is an American poet and critic who wrote a national bestseller about reading poetry entitled How to Read A Poem And Fall In Love With Poetry<\/strong><\/a> <\/em>published in 2014. He has published nine books of poems, including The Living Fire: New and Selected Poems<\/em> (2010) and Gabriel: A Poem<\/em> (2014), a book-length elegy for his son that The New Yorker called \u201ca masterpiece of sorrow.\u201d He has also published five prose books about poetry.  His latest book of essays, 100 Poems to Break your Heart<\/strong><\/a><\/em> was published in 2021.  He is president of the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation in New York City. Currently he is finishing a book of essays called The Heart of American Poetry<\/strong><\/a>. <\/em>It will be published in April to mark the fortieth anniversary of the Library of America. The book consists of deeply personal readings of forty essential American poems. It rethinks the American tradition in poetry.  Ed Hirsch lives in New York City.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lead image: Polish poet Wis\u0142awa Szymborska, taken Monday, September 30, 1996. Szymborska was named winner of this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature on Thursday, October 3, 1996. AP Photo\/Filip Miller.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Polish Poetry Unites\u00a0is a video series complementing our\u00a0Encounters with Polish Literature\u00a0series for anyone interested in literature, poetry in particular, history, and reading.\u00a0In each episode,\u00a0Edward Hirsch, a distinguished American poet, and the president of the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, will introduce a celebrated Polish poet to American audiences. The seventh episode is devoted to Wis\u0142awa Szymborska (1923-2011) who was first Polish woman […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":105,"featured_media":8762,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","category-literature"],"yoast_head":"\nWis\u0142awa\u00a0Szymborska, an Eulogist of the ordinary - Instytut Polski w Nowym Jorku<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2023\/06\/30\/wislawa-szymborska-an-eulogist-of-the-ordinary\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"pl_PL\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Wis\u0142awa\u00a0Szymborska, an Eulogist of the ordinary - Instytut Polski w Nowym Jorku\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Polish Poetry Unites\u00a0is a video series complementing our\u00a0Encounters with Polish Literature\u00a0series for anyone interested in literature, poetry in particular, history, and reading.\u00a0In each episode,\u00a0Edward Hirsch, a distinguished American poet, and the president of the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, will introduce a celebrated Polish poet to American audiences. The seventh episode is devoted to Wis\u0142awa Szymborska (1923-2011) who was first Polish woman […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2023\/06\/30\/wislawa-szymborska-an-eulogist-of-the-ordinary\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Instytut Polski w Nowym Jorku\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-06-30T14:27:13+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-12-16T17:44:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2023\/06\/Szymborska.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1528\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"2134\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"klaudia\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Napisane przez\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"klaudia\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Szacowany czas czytania\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"10 minut\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"event\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2023\/06\/30\/wislawa-szymborska-an-eulogist-of-the-ordinary\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2023\/06\/30\/wislawa-szymborska-an-eulogist-of-the-ordinary\/\",\"name\":\"Wis\u0142awa\u00a0Szymborska, an Eulogist of the ordinary\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2023\/06\/30\/wislawa-szymborska-an-eulogist-of-the-ordinary\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":[\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2023\/06\/Szymborska.jpg\",\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2023\/06\/Szymborska-215x300.jpg\",\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2023\/06\/Szymborska-733x1024.jpg\",\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2023\/06\/Szymborska.jpg\"],\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2023\/06\/Szymborska.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-06-30T14:27:13+02:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-12-16T17:44:50+02:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/#\/schema\/person\/04d40cd80c1729a7f440613bee4073b6\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2023\/06\/30\/wislawa-szymborska-an-eulogist-of-the-ordinary\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"pl-PL\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2023\/06\/30\/wislawa-szymborska-an-eulogist-of-the-ordinary\/\"]}],\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"startDate\":\"2023-06-30\",\"endDate\":\"2023-06-30\",\"eventStatus\":\"EventScheduled\",\"eventAttendanceMode\":\"OfflineEventAttendanceMode\",\"location\":{\"@type\":\"place\",\"name\":\"\",\"address\":\"\",\"geo\":{\"@type\":\"GeoCoordinates\",\"latitude\":\"\",\"longitude\":\"\"}},\"description\":\"Polish Poetry Unites\u00a0is a video series complementing our\u00a0Encounters with Polish Literature\u00a0series for anyone interested in literature, poetry in particular, history, and reading.\u00a0In each episode,\u00a0Edward Hirsch, a distinguished American poet, and the president of the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, will introduce a celebrated Polish poet to American audiences. \\nThe seventh episode is devoted to Wis\u0142awa Szymborska (1923-2011) who was first Polish woman and the ninth woman in the world to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. We celebrate her centennial this year. The celebrations are coordinated worldwide by The Wis\u0142awa Szymborska Foundation in Krak\u00f3w.\\n\u201cWis\u0142awa Szymborska is a marvelous Polish poet, a major 20th century Polish poet.\u201d \u2013 starts his introduction Edward Hirsch. \u201cShe belongs to the half generation after Mi\u0142osz, the generation of Herbert and R\u00f3\u017cewicz, which means that she lived through two totalitarianisms: the German occupation first, the Soviet occupation second and I think that this gave her a kind of allergy to collectivist thinking.\\\"\\nShe refuses all collectivist ideas. She speaks only of the individual, the \u201cI.\u201d She doesn't speak for the \u201cwe.\u201d And she is also very aware of the limitations of the sensibility of the individual... Throughout her work, which is extremely witty, there is a great awareness of cruelty and evil... There was a sense that the world was coming to an end, and yet the world did not come to an end, somehow after every catastrophe, the world still manages to survive.\\nAgainst this sense of radical contingency of destruction that can come at any time, at any moment, Hirsch highly recommend her poem \u201cCould have.\u201d It could have happened, it might have happened, it had to happen. She\u2019s really writing a poetry of the close shave.\\nAgainst this idea of our radical mortality there is also a sense of the staying power of art. The art of writing, the art of painting, the art of music as tremendous miracles of human creation. She has a sense also of what she calls \\\"the miracle fare of life\\\" which is daily life and how daily life somehow continues to reimagine itself.\\nHirsch likes to mention than not many people know that Szymborska also made wonderful collages which she sent to friends. The postcards in communist Poland were so bland that she refused to use them. Instead she used the ones she made herself which were very witty and funny. Her collages are very witty and insightful. Especially the one she sent to Umberto Eco, with a woman from the 19th century looking at this wonderful orange sun set. It is very evocative.\\nHirsch says \\\"I knew her a little. I interviewed her after she won the Nobel Prize, for the New York Times Magazine. But I knew her well enough to say that she would love this high school girl in the film about Vermeer, who is going blind and loves Szymborska\u2019s poem \u201cVermeer\u201d and Vermeer himself.\\\"\\nThis poem, \u201cVermeer,\u201d gives you a sense in just one moment of what is so marvelous about human experience, as it gets transformed into art. Because somehow through the miraculous transformation of art Vermeer captures a moment of a milk maid pouring milk out of a jug that will last forever. This moment of the everyday has a kind of radiance. It is captured first by Vermeer, then it is transformed into Szymborska\u2019s marvelous little poem. And then this wonderful blind high school girl finds this poem, recites it aloud and three imaginations come together: Vermeer\u2019s, Szymborska's, and hers. \\nVermeerby Wis\u0142awa Szymborska\\nDop\u00f3ki ta kobieta z Rijksmuseumw namalowanej ciszy i skupieniumleko z dzbanka do miskidzie\u0144 po dniu przelewa,nie zas\u0142uguje \u015awiatna koniec \u015bwiata.\\nVermeerby Wis\u0142awa Szymborskatranslated from Polish by Clare Cavanagh and Stanislaw Baranczak\\nSo long as that woman from the Rijksmuseumin painted quiet and concentrationkeeps pouring milk day after dayfrom the pitcher to the bowlthe World hasn\u2019t earnedthe world\u2019s end.\\nSource: The New York Review of Books\\nIf you are interested more in Wis\u0142awa Szymborska and her oeuvre please listen to this previous episode of our monthly series \u201cEncounters with Polish Literature\u201d on Wis\u0142awa Szymborska.\\nIn this episode David A. Goldfarb speak with Szymborska\u2019s current main English-language translator, Clare Cavanagh, about what it was like to work with Szymborska, and they look at several of her poems from her earliest work in the late 1940s and early \u201850s, to her political shift marked by the collection, Calling Out to Yeti, to later works including a personal perspective on her very popular \u201cCat in an Empty Apartment.\u201d They also touch upon her love of kitsch, her fascination with boxing, and look at a few of her collages. Toward the end of the discussion they offer a tribute to the editor, Drenka Willen, who championed literature in translation during her long career at Harcourt, and helped many great international writers, including Wis\u0142awa Szymborska, reach wide audiences in English and go on to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.\\nWis\u0142awa Szymborska, (born July 2, 1923, Bnin [now part of K\u00f3rnik], Poland\u2014died February 1, 2012, Krak\u00f3w), Polish poet whose intelligent and empathic explorations of philosophical, moral, and ethical issues won her the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1996.\\nSzymborska\u2019s father was the steward on a count\u2019s family estate. When she was eight, the family moved to Krak\u00f3w, and she attended high school there. Between 1945 and 1948 she studied literature and sociology at Krak\u00f3w\u2019s Jagiellonian University. Her first published poem, \u201cSzukam s\u0142owa\u201d (\u201cI Seek the Word\u201d), appeared in a Krak\u00f3w newspaper in March 1945. Dlatego \u017cyjemy (1952; \u201cThat\u2019s Why We Are Alive\u201d), her first volume of poetry, was an attempt to conform to Socialist Realism, the officially approved literary style of Poland\u2019s communist regime. In 1953 she joined the editorial staff of \u017bycie Literackie (\u201cLiterary Life\u201d), a weekly magazine of intellectual interests, and remained there until 1981. During this period she gained a reputation not only as a poet but also as a book reviewer and translator of French poetry. In the 1980s she wrote for the underground press under the pseudonym Stanczyk\u00f3wna and also wrote for a magazine in Paris.\\nBetween 1952 and 1993 Szymborska published more than a dozen volumes of poetry. She later disowned the first two volumes, which contain poems in the style of Socialist Realism, as not indicative of her true poetic intentions. Her third volume, Wo\u0142anie do Yeti (1957; \u201cCalling Out to Yeti\u201d), marked a clear shift to a more personal style of poetry and expressed her dissatisfaction with communism (Stalinism in particular). Subsequent volumes, such as S\u00f3l (1962; \u201cSalt\u201d), Sto pociech (1967; \u201cNo End of Fun\u201d), and Wszelki wypadek (1972; \u201cCould Have\u201d), contain poems noteworthy for their precise, concrete language and ironic detachment. Selections of her poems were translated into English and published in such collections as Sounds, Feelings, Thoughts: Seventy Poems (1981), People on a Bridge: Poems (1990), View with a Grain of Sand (1995), Monologue of a Dog (2005), and Here (2010).\\nBiography source: Britannica.\\nSelected works by Wis\u0142awa Szymborska\\nMap: Collected and Last Poems. Tr. Stanis\u0142aw Bara\u0144czak and Clare Cavanagh. New York: Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt, 2015.Miracle Fair: Selected Poems of Wislawa Szymborska. Tr. Joanna Trzeciak. New York: W.W. Norton, 2002.Monologue of a Dog. Tr. Stanis\u0142aw Bara\u0144czak and Clare Cavanagh. Foreword by Billy Collins New York: Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt, 2015.Nonrequired Reading: Prose Pieces. Tr. Clare Cavanagh. New York: Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt, 2015.How to Start Writing (And When to Stop). Tr. Clare Cavanagh. New York: New Directions, 2021.\\nAdditional Resources:\\nThe Wis\u0142awa Szymborska FoundationWis\u0142awa Szymborska Nobel Prize pageWis\u0142awa Szymborska page at the Academy of American Poets siteWis\u0142awa Szymborska page at the Poetry FoundationWis\u0142awa Szymborska & the Poetry of Existence\\nModerator: Edward HirschWriter and Director: Ewa Zadrzy\u0144skaCinematography: Jacek Mieros\u0142awskiEditor: Anna J\u0119drzejewskaCurator and Executive Producer: Bartek Remisko\\nEdward Hirsch is an American poet and critic who wrote a national bestseller about reading poetry entitled How to Read A Poem And Fall In Love With Poetry published in 2014. He has published nine books of poems, including The Living Fire: New and Selected Poems (2010) and Gabriel: A Poem (2014), a book-length elegy for his son that The New Yorker called \u201ca masterpiece of sorrow.\u201d He has also published five prose books about poetry. His latest book of essays, 100 Poems to Break your Heart was published in 2021. He is president of the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation in New York City. Currently he is finishing a book of essays called The Heart of American Poetry. It will be published in April to mark the fortieth anniversary of the Library of America. The book consists of deeply personal readings of forty essential American poems. It rethinks the American tradition in poetry. Ed Hirsch lives in New York City.\\nLead image: Polish poet Wis\u0142awa Szymborska, taken Monday, September 30, 1996. Szymborska was named winner of this year's Nobel Prize for Literature on Thursday, October 3, 1996. AP Photo\/Filip Miller.\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"pl-PL\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2023\/06\/30\/wislawa-szymborska-an-eulogist-of-the-ordinary\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2023\/06\/Szymborska.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2023\/06\/Szymborska.jpg\",\"width\":1528,\"height\":2134},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2023\/06\/30\/wislawa-szymborska-an-eulogist-of-the-ordinary\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Wis\u0142awa\u00a0Szymborska, an Eulogist of the ordinary\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/\",\"name\":\"Instytut Polski w Nowym Jorku\",\"description\":\"Instytuty Polskie\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"pl-PL\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/#\/schema\/person\/04d40cd80c1729a7f440613bee4073b6\",\"name\":\"klaudia\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"pl-PL\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/649cd2d4f6b3f48c5bf42d51f7e665fb?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/649cd2d4f6b3f48c5bf42d51f7e665fb?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"klaudia\"},\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/lukasz.sienkiewicz@msz.gov.pl\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/author\/stypulkowskaa\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Wis\u0142awa\u00a0Szymborska, an Eulogist of the ordinary - Instytut Polski w Nowym Jorku","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2023\/06\/30\/wislawa-szymborska-an-eulogist-of-the-ordinary\/","og_locale":"pl_PL","og_type":"article","og_title":"Wis\u0142awa\u00a0Szymborska, an Eulogist of the ordinary - Instytut Polski w Nowym Jorku","og_description":"Polish Poetry Unites\u00a0is a video series complementing our\u00a0Encounters with Polish Literature\u00a0series for anyone interested in literature, poetry in particular, history, and reading.\u00a0In each episode,\u00a0Edward Hirsch, a distinguished American poet, and the president of the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, will introduce a celebrated Polish poet to American audiences. The seventh episode is devoted to Wis\u0142awa Szymborska (1923-2011) who was first Polish woman […]","og_url":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2023\/06\/30\/wislawa-szymborska-an-eulogist-of-the-ordinary\/","og_site_name":"Instytut Polski w Nowym Jorku","article_published_time":"2023-06-30T14:27:13+00:00","article_modified_time":"2024-12-16T17:44:50+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1528,"height":2134,"url":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2023\/06\/Szymborska.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"klaudia","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Napisane przez":"klaudia","Szacowany czas czytania":"10 minut"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"event","@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2023\/06\/30\/wislawa-szymborska-an-eulogist-of-the-ordinary\/","url":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2023\/06\/30\/wislawa-szymborska-an-eulogist-of-the-ordinary\/","name":"Wis\u0142awa\u00a0Szymborska, an Eulogist of the ordinary","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2023\/06\/30\/wislawa-szymborska-an-eulogist-of-the-ordinary\/#primaryimage"},"image":["https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2023\/06\/Szymborska.jpg","https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2023\/06\/Szymborska-215x300.jpg","https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2023\/06\/Szymborska-733x1024.jpg","https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2023\/06\/Szymborska.jpg"],"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2023\/06\/Szymborska.jpg","datePublished":"2023-06-30T14:27:13+02:00","dateModified":"2024-12-16T17:44:50+02:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/#\/schema\/person\/04d40cd80c1729a7f440613bee4073b6"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2023\/06\/30\/wislawa-szymborska-an-eulogist-of-the-ordinary\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"pl-PL","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2023\/06\/30\/wislawa-szymborska-an-eulogist-of-the-ordinary\/"]}],"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","startDate":"2023-06-30","endDate":"2023-06-30","eventStatus":"EventScheduled","eventAttendanceMode":"OfflineEventAttendanceMode","location":{"@type":"place","name":"","address":"","geo":{"@type":"GeoCoordinates","latitude":"","longitude":""}},"description":"Polish Poetry Unites\u00a0is a video series complementing our\u00a0Encounters with Polish Literature\u00a0series for anyone interested in literature, poetry in particular, history, and reading.\u00a0In each episode,\u00a0Edward Hirsch, a distinguished American poet, and the president of the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, will introduce a celebrated Polish poet to American audiences. \nThe seventh episode is devoted to Wis\u0142awa Szymborska (1923-2011) who was first Polish woman and the ninth woman in the world to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. We celebrate her centennial this year. The celebrations are coordinated worldwide by The Wis\u0142awa Szymborska Foundation in Krak\u00f3w.\n\u201cWis\u0142awa Szymborska is a marvelous Polish poet, a major 20th century Polish poet.\u201d \u2013 starts his introduction Edward Hirsch. \u201cShe belongs to the half generation after Mi\u0142osz, the generation of Herbert and R\u00f3\u017cewicz, which means that she lived through two totalitarianisms: the German occupation first, the Soviet occupation second and I think that this gave her a kind of allergy to collectivist thinking.\"\nShe refuses all collectivist ideas. She speaks only of the individual, the \u201cI.\u201d She doesn't speak for the \u201cwe.\u201d And she is also very aware of the limitations of the sensibility of the individual... Throughout her work, which is extremely witty, there is a great awareness of cruelty and evil... There was a sense that the world was coming to an end, and yet the world did not come to an end, somehow after every catastrophe, the world still manages to survive.\nAgainst this sense of radical contingency of destruction that can come at any time, at any moment, Hirsch highly recommend her poem \u201cCould have.\u201d It could have happened, it might have happened, it had to happen. She\u2019s really writing a poetry of the close shave.\nAgainst this idea of our radical mortality there is also a sense of the staying power of art. The art of writing, the art of painting, the art of music as tremendous miracles of human creation. She has a sense also of what she calls \"the miracle fare of life\" which is daily life and how daily life somehow continues to reimagine itself.\nHirsch likes to mention than not many people know that Szymborska also made wonderful collages which she sent to friends. The postcards in communist Poland were so bland that she refused to use them. Instead she used the ones she made herself which were very witty and funny. Her collages are very witty and insightful. Especially the one she sent to Umberto Eco, with a woman from the 19th century looking at this wonderful orange sun set. It is very evocative.\nHirsch says \"I knew her a little. I interviewed her after she won the Nobel Prize, for the New York Times Magazine. But I knew her well enough to say that she would love this high school girl in the film about Vermeer, who is going blind and loves Szymborska\u2019s poem \u201cVermeer\u201d and Vermeer himself.\"\nThis poem, \u201cVermeer,\u201d gives you a sense in just one moment of what is so marvelous about human experience, as it gets transformed into art. Because somehow through the miraculous transformation of art Vermeer captures a moment of a milk maid pouring milk out of a jug that will last forever. This moment of the everyday has a kind of radiance. It is captured first by Vermeer, then it is transformed into Szymborska\u2019s marvelous little poem. And then this wonderful blind high school girl finds this poem, recites it aloud and three imaginations come together: Vermeer\u2019s, Szymborska's, and hers. \nVermeerby Wis\u0142awa Szymborska\nDop\u00f3ki ta kobieta z Rijksmuseumw namalowanej ciszy i skupieniumleko z dzbanka do miskidzie\u0144 po dniu przelewa,nie zas\u0142uguje \u015awiatna koniec \u015bwiata.\nVermeerby Wis\u0142awa Szymborskatranslated from Polish by Clare Cavanagh and Stanislaw Baranczak\nSo long as that woman from the Rijksmuseumin painted quiet and concentrationkeeps pouring milk day after dayfrom the pitcher to the bowlthe World hasn\u2019t earnedthe world\u2019s end.\nSource: The New York Review of Books\nIf you are interested more in Wis\u0142awa Szymborska and her oeuvre please listen to this previous episode of our monthly series \u201cEncounters with Polish Literature\u201d on Wis\u0142awa Szymborska.\nIn this episode David A. Goldfarb speak with Szymborska\u2019s current main English-language translator, Clare Cavanagh, about what it was like to work with Szymborska, and they look at several of her poems from her earliest work in the late 1940s and early \u201850s, to her political shift marked by the collection, Calling Out to Yeti, to later works including a personal perspective on her very popular \u201cCat in an Empty Apartment.\u201d They also touch upon her love of kitsch, her fascination with boxing, and look at a few of her collages. Toward the end of the discussion they offer a tribute to the editor, Drenka Willen, who championed literature in translation during her long career at Harcourt, and helped many great international writers, including Wis\u0142awa Szymborska, reach wide audiences in English and go on to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.\nWis\u0142awa Szymborska, (born July 2, 1923, Bnin [now part of K\u00f3rnik], Poland\u2014died February 1, 2012, Krak\u00f3w), Polish poet whose intelligent and empathic explorations of philosophical, moral, and ethical issues won her the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1996.\nSzymborska\u2019s father was the steward on a count\u2019s family estate. When she was eight, the family moved to Krak\u00f3w, and she attended high school there. Between 1945 and 1948 she studied literature and sociology at Krak\u00f3w\u2019s Jagiellonian University. Her first published poem, \u201cSzukam s\u0142owa\u201d (\u201cI Seek the Word\u201d), appeared in a Krak\u00f3w newspaper in March 1945. Dlatego \u017cyjemy (1952; \u201cThat\u2019s Why We Are Alive\u201d), her first volume of poetry, was an attempt to conform to Socialist Realism, the officially approved literary style of Poland\u2019s communist regime. In 1953 she joined the editorial staff of \u017bycie Literackie (\u201cLiterary Life\u201d), a weekly magazine of intellectual interests, and remained there until 1981. During this period she gained a reputation not only as a poet but also as a book reviewer and translator of French poetry. In the 1980s she wrote for the underground press under the pseudonym Stanczyk\u00f3wna and also wrote for a magazine in Paris.\nBetween 1952 and 1993 Szymborska published more than a dozen volumes of poetry. She later disowned the first two volumes, which contain poems in the style of Socialist Realism, as not indicative of her true poetic intentions. Her third volume, Wo\u0142anie do Yeti (1957; \u201cCalling Out to Yeti\u201d), marked a clear shift to a more personal style of poetry and expressed her dissatisfaction with communism (Stalinism in particular). Subsequent volumes, such as S\u00f3l (1962; \u201cSalt\u201d), Sto pociech (1967; \u201cNo End of Fun\u201d), and Wszelki wypadek (1972; \u201cCould Have\u201d), contain poems noteworthy for their precise, concrete language and ironic detachment. Selections of her poems were translated into English and published in such collections as Sounds, Feelings, Thoughts: Seventy Poems (1981), People on a Bridge: Poems (1990), View with a Grain of Sand (1995), Monologue of a Dog (2005), and Here (2010).\nBiography source: Britannica.\nSelected works by Wis\u0142awa Szymborska\nMap: Collected and Last Poems. Tr. Stanis\u0142aw Bara\u0144czak and Clare Cavanagh. New York: Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt, 2015.Miracle Fair: Selected Poems of Wislawa Szymborska. Tr. Joanna Trzeciak. New York: W.W. Norton, 2002.Monologue of a Dog. Tr. Stanis\u0142aw Bara\u0144czak and Clare Cavanagh. Foreword by Billy Collins New York: Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt, 2015.Nonrequired Reading: Prose Pieces. Tr. Clare Cavanagh. New York: Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt, 2015.How to Start Writing (And When to Stop). Tr. Clare Cavanagh. New York: New Directions, 2021.\nAdditional Resources:\nThe Wis\u0142awa Szymborska FoundationWis\u0142awa Szymborska Nobel Prize pageWis\u0142awa Szymborska page at the Academy of American Poets siteWis\u0142awa Szymborska page at the Poetry FoundationWis\u0142awa Szymborska & the Poetry of Existence\nModerator: Edward HirschWriter and Director: Ewa Zadrzy\u0144skaCinematography: Jacek Mieros\u0142awskiEditor: Anna J\u0119drzejewskaCurator and Executive Producer: Bartek Remisko\nEdward Hirsch is an American poet and critic who wrote a national bestseller about reading poetry entitled How to Read A Poem And Fall In Love With Poetry published in 2014. He has published nine books of poems, including The Living Fire: New and Selected Poems (2010) and Gabriel: A Poem (2014), a book-length elegy for his son that The New Yorker called \u201ca masterpiece of sorrow.\u201d He has also published five prose books about poetry. His latest book of essays, 100 Poems to Break your Heart was published in 2021. He is president of the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation in New York City. Currently he is finishing a book of essays called The Heart of American Poetry. It will be published in April to mark the fortieth anniversary of the Library of America. The book consists of deeply personal readings of forty essential American poems. It rethinks the American tradition in poetry. Ed Hirsch lives in New York City.\nLead image: Polish poet Wis\u0142awa Szymborska, taken Monday, September 30, 1996. Szymborska was named winner of this year's Nobel Prize for Literature on Thursday, October 3, 1996. AP Photo\/Filip Miller."},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"pl-PL","@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2023\/06\/30\/wislawa-szymborska-an-eulogist-of-the-ordinary\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2023\/06\/Szymborska.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2023\/06\/Szymborska.jpg","width":1528,"height":2134},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2023\/06\/30\/wislawa-szymborska-an-eulogist-of-the-ordinary\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Wis\u0142awa\u00a0Szymborska, an Eulogist of the ordinary"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/#website","url":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/","name":"Instytut Polski w Nowym Jorku","description":"Instytuty Polskie","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"pl-PL"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/#\/schema\/person\/04d40cd80c1729a7f440613bee4073b6","name":"klaudia","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"pl-PL","@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/649cd2d4f6b3f48c5bf42d51f7e665fb?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/649cd2d4f6b3f48c5bf42d51f7e665fb?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"klaudia"},"sameAs":["http:\/\/lukasz.sienkiewicz@msz.gov.pl"],"url":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/author\/stypulkowskaa\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/105"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8760"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8760\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15070,"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8760\/revisions\/15070"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}