Wislawa Szymborska
Wislawa Szymborska
Maria Wisława Anna Szymborska was a Polish poet, essayist, translator and recipient of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature. Born in Prowent, which has since become part of Kórnik, she later resided in Kraków until the end of her life. She is described as a "Mozart of Poetry". In Poland, Szymborska's books have reached sales rivaling prominent prose authors: although she once remarked in a poem, "Some Like Poetry", that no more than two out of a thousand people care...
NationalityPolish
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth2 July 1923
CountryPoland
Every beginning is only a sequel, after all, and the book of events is always open halfway through.
I don't know the role I'm playing. I only know it's mine, non-convertible.
Inspiration is not the exclusive privilege of poets or artists. There is, there has been, there will always be a certain group of people whom inspiration visits. It's made up of all those who've consciously chosen their calling and do their job with love and imagination...Difficulties and setbacks never quell their curiosity. A swarm of new questions emerges from every problem that they solve. Whatever inspiration is, it's born from a continuous 'I don't know.
And whatever I do will become forever what I've done.
All the best have something in common, a regard for reality, an agreement to its primacy over the imagination. Even the richest, most surprising and wild imagination is not as rich, wild and surprising as reality. The task of the poet is to pick singular threads from this dense, colorful fabric.
Even boredom should be described with gusto. How many things are happening on a day when nothing happens?
All is mine but nothing owned, nothing owned for memory, and mine only while I look.
At the very beginning of my creative life I loved humanity. I wanted to do something good for mankind. Soon I understood that it isn't possible to save mankind.
No day copies yesterday, no two nights will teach what bliss is in precisely the same way, with precisely the same kisses.
Such certainty is beautiful, but uncertainty is more beautiful still
The joy of writing. The power of preserving. Revenge of a mortal hand.
Let the people who never find true love keep saying that there's no such thing. Their faith will make it easier for them to live and die.
I usually write for the individual reader -though I would like to have many such readers. There are some poets who write for people assembled in big rooms, so they can live through something collectively. I prefer my reader to take my poem and have a one-on-one relationship with it.
Any knowledge that doesn't lead to new questions quickly dies out: it fails to maintain the temperature required for sustaining life.