Here: Poems - Paperback

by Wislawa Szymborska (Author)

A "delectable and profound" collection of poems from Nobel Prize-winner Szymborska (Booklist).

When Here was published in Poland, reviewers marveled, "How is it that she keeps getting better?"

These twenty-seven poems, as rendered by prize-winning translators Clare Cavanagh and Stanislaw Baranczak, are among her greatest ever. Whether writing about her teenage self, microscopic creatures, or the upsides to living on Earth, she remains a virtuoso of form, line, and thought.

From the title poem:

I can't speak for elsewhere,
but here on Earth we've got a fair supply of everything.
Here we manufacture chairs and sorrows,
scissors, tenderness, transistors, violins, teacups, dams, and quips. . .

Like nowhere else, or almost nowhere,
you're given your own torso here,
equipped with the accessories required
for adding your own children to the rest.
Not to mention arms, legs, and astonished head.

Front Jacket

A new book of poems by Wislawa Szymborska is an occasion to celebrate. These twenty-seven poems consider life on earth, from the microbe to the apocalypse. Along the way they take in, among other objects of study, the human teenager, divorce, Ella Fitzgerald, Vermeer s Milkmaid, dreams, traffic accidents, Greek statues, TV miniseries, the vagaries of memory, Madame Atropos, and even poetry writing. A book to treasure, from a virtuoso of form, line, and thought. "

Back Jacket

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

Author Biography

WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA has worked as an editor, translator, and columnist, though she is best known as a poet. In 1996, she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.