Link to document: Poems by Szymborska (six poems, including "The Kindness of the Blind") The document also includes links to information on the poet and to five more poems.
Blog Activity: Choose one of the poems (one you like for whatever reason). Identify the poem by title in a comment.
Write a short paragraph (150-200 words) that explains why you like the poem chosen. You may comment on poetic elements, on theme, on images or whatever else you notice.
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The Power of the Breath
Wislawa Szymborska’s, “The Three Oddest Words,” is a personal favourite of mine, a poem of simplicity and power. Her repeated, “When I pronounce the word,” emphasizes the breath of the speaker and strongly accents her line-ending words, “Future,” “Silence” and “Nothing.” The poem speaks of “the first syllable” that “already belongs to the past,” something so obviously true that it delights the reader. Szymborska’s paradoxes, above all, teach us that there are truths we rarely think about: that the “Future” has arrived even as we speak a word; that our voice destroys “Silence.” She challenges us even more in the third stanza. The most important of the “Oddest Words,” is “Nothing.” She contrasts this “Nothing” with a powerful verb, “make,” then leaves you wondering, ending on “something no non-being can hold.” Reading the poem for the first time, after finding the first two stanzas delightfully amusing, the reader is engaged by a final puzzle. “When I pronounce the word,” is the opposite of non-being, and so the breath we speak is life itself. Her theme reminds us that it is the speaking voice that defines humanity and that voice is what makes humans different and is all we have between us and “Silence” and “Nothing.” Szymborska's simple, powerful words captivate me, always.
"First Love" in My Eyes
After having arduously read and tried to comprehend the "First Love" from Wislawa Szymborska, as a poem sucker,I feel the "First Love" different from the others. She seems unhappy, or even a little bit furious towards her first relationship which might not end well: she uses "silly" to decribe the souvenir from the first lover, and "tied the letters with string", "not even ribbon" to show her less attention about old bitter memories; their cold re-encounter sounds reasonable to me: both of them have their own life and previous sweetness no longer exit in "the conversation between two chairs at a chilly table"; she even produced the word "unrememdered" to compare it with her other loves, "not even in the dreams". I can totally sense her grieve until the last sentence shows up:"it introduces me to death". All of a sudden the feeling of her first love is changing--she does care about this love and definitely it's the most memorable love she ever had. It reminds me my first love: a mixture of impulse, bitterness and unforgettable memory. So does everyone, I guess.
The respect for life
The more time I read Wislawa Szymborska’s poems, the more they grow on to me. I liked most of the poems that Brad recommended to us, especially the one-- “possibilities.” I am attracted to her natural and simple attitude to life. Judging from the two first lines, “I prefer movies/I prefer cats,” and then the whole thirty-nine lines’ poem honestly tells her partialities. I admire this kind of vindicate--no hypocritical and pedantic idea; just the frank announcement with the respect to an active life. Through her word, I seem get along with her who respects every common life including people like you and me and every possibility that exists in our daily life. I learn forgive from her since she persuades readers to accept the different personalities because “that existence has its own reason for being.” These colorful personal qualities combined together build a lovely world. The two sentences, “I prefer the absurdity of writing poems/to the absurdity of not writing poems,” give me the hint that poems must make extremely delight to both poets and readers. Being an ignorant poem’s reader, maybe I should try to read more poems to understand this different enjoyment. Szymborska’s “prefer” and the perspective of life strongly make my response.
Title:The Respect for Life
Life
I’ve decided to favour Szymborska’s A Little Girl at the Tablecloth not only for its simplicity and light humour, but also for its philosophical meaning of life. The poem shows a random picture from life of one-year old girl. The girl has just started her life and is trying to learn everything about the surrounded world. Everything has to be “examined / and taken in hand.” The child is a symbol of the future, the new ideas, and new perspectives. She is a hope at liberty to do whatever she thinks to do. For a pure child, science doesn’t work. Everything is possible. There’s also Mr. Newton. An adult scientist that knows better how the world is working. He “. . . looks down from the heavens and wave his hands” like he would like to yell that this will not work this way. But he is in the past now. He has to let others learn the lessons. Everyone gets a chance to discover, what’s life about. We can read the books, learn the science, but the best way to understand the life is to get to know it by themselves. Quoting Mrs. Szymborska : “This experiment (life) must be completed (by everyone)./ And it will.”
ABC
I like the poem ABC because the author used letters of the alphabet to represent people who she had relationships with. She will never find out, so she tells us these relationships are over and she will never know the truth about them. She gives us the feeling of suspense by not giving us any details. Also, she keeps us in suspense by not telling us what kind of relationship they are. She might be talk about her family, her friends, boyfriends, or anybody. Personally, this poem is about anybody who she knows and she gives us the idea that she did something wrong with them. I feel the author regrets about the relationships and how they ended. I think the author is trying to tell us to be very attentive to the ones who you care about, so you will not be left in the dark about how the relationship ended.
Afraid to Die
After, reading the poems from Wislawa Szymborska, the one I enjoyed most was, “On Death, without Exaggeration”, because of its rhythm and verses from almost every stanza. It made me to transport to another word (heaven and hell). In addition, to accept death as a process in our life, and not to be so scared, perhaps to consider “beside the point”, because everyone should be conscious to live everyday as it could be the last day. Szymborska makes a clear statement “Why?”, “preoccupied with killing “, not need for as we don’t need any special skill to be ill. Moreover, I noticed a little be of sarcasm with comparison because sometimes, “things cannot be done”, so it could be the last warning from our soul that we are going to die, so it is time to start “cleaning” as the end is getting closer. This poem has a special meaning because I am not afraid to die; in Mexican culture we made a tribute to death instead of cry.
172 words
Bitter First Love
The poem "First Love", by Wislawa
Szymborska, is about the first
love the speaker experiences.
Usually, "the first love's most
important",and "that's very
romantic", but to the speaker,the
first love is insipid, unhappy
and never exciting. Moreover, the
auther uses "silly" to describe
the memento, and "a sheaf of
letters tied with string". This
shows the speaker does not care
about the first love. In
addition, after years, they meet again, but they talk "at a chilly table". Therefore, comparing the first love with other loves, the first love can not be remembered, even in dreams, while other loves still keep in the speaker' mind. "it introduces me to death", so the first love is really sad. This poem reminds me about my first love which is some sweet, some sour, some bitter, and some spicy, and my first love is still hidden in my heart.
Return Baggage
I think “Return Baggage” besides all simplicity has a big lesson for people who normally forget they have to leave the world one day, when, who knows. We can get this message from her first stanza “we, the long … like wealthy people passing slums.” she wants to remind people you can not get away of dying. I enjoy the way she explains the message by telling the story of children grave, who died at the very early age, in a rhyme that makes sense perfectly for readers, for example, She measures their knowledge and experiences with those verses, “They didn’t stash much in their return bags” or “A spoonful of bitter knowledge-the taste of medicine” or another one she describes their ages “Rafalek, missed his first birthday by a month . . . missed Christmas, when misty breath turns to frost.” she is trying to show with those examples people are dying at any age and humans are not able to change their destiny. It is not lovely and logical but is reality.
First Love
This poem has alot of bitterness which is stressed out through it. It starts out,"Something went on and went away." Love and friendships come in and out of one's life constantly. The speaker finds old letters tied with string, not fancy ribbon, and it's not a big deal. When she runs into him, she doesn't know what to say. It seems quite sad. The mood is cold. Her first love is something she wants to forget. Other relationships are more memorable which is ironic because a person's first love is suppost to be the one you never forget.The author is very specific about feelings. Meeting up with a blast from the past can involve not knowing what to say and not knowing what not to say."Our only meeting after years/ the conversation of two chairs." Chairs are not people. This is an example of how uncomfortable it can be. My first love was not a positive experience. Actually he is the reason why I left school. It is embarrassing for me to admit my feelings. I wish I knew what happened to him.
ABC
I'll never find out now
what Alex. thought of me.
If Brown. ever forgave me in the end.
Why Charlie. pretended everything was fine.
What part Daniel. had in Edwin.'s silence.
What Frank. had been expecting, if anything.
Why Gloria. forgot when she knew perfectly well.
What Handel. had to hide.
What Ivan. wanted to add.
If my being around
meant anything
to Jeniffer. and Ken. and the rest of the alphabet.
ABC
I'll never find out now
what Andrew. thought of me.
If Brad. ever forgave me in the end.
Why Claudia. pretended everything was fine.
What part Lola. had in Zara.'s silence.
What Margeret. had been expecting, if anything.
Why Tamu. forgot when she knew perfectly well.
What Vicky. had to hide.
What Victoria. wanted to add.
If my being around
meant anything
to Jane. and Ken. and the rest of the alphabet.
I read about W. Szymbroska. She is passionate to the world, to everything and life and most all, people live aruound us. You have to care them and understand them.
She can read people.
Simplicity is a sister of talent
I have read several poems of Wislawa Szymborska and found interesting one of her poems named “The Three Oddest Words.” I was stunned by combination of absolute simplicity and tremendous depth of words that she uses in this poem. We use these words every day and never think about the meaning they carry. We think “Future” means something distant, far, and something that you have to attain. However, Szymborska show us that “When I pronounce the word Future,/the first syllable already belongs to the past.” It opens your eyes. The filing I had after reading this line was similar to if someone showed me how to solve a huge mathematical problem in one easy step. Shock is that how I would describe my fillings, a pleasant shock, if you will. The word “Nothing”, in its part, carries nothing. Absurd of this is that when we are pronouncing this, we are giving the word a power to be something, a power to exist. People have a power over words as well as words have a power over people, that how I understand the poem of Wislawa Szymborska “The three Oddest Words.”
I've just found another poem "Funeral". Did anybody read it? I think it is pure great!
Hi Victoria,
Yes, indeed I have. A favourite of mine, too. Glad to see your work here; missed you at the last class. See you in January, everyone.
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