[This post was written by guest contributor Deborah Buchanan]
Czelaw Milosz told the story of a group of famous Polish poets riding to another poet’s funeral, speeding actually, who were stopped by the police. When the officer recognized two of the poets, Milosz himself and Wislawa Szymborska, he became their escort, rushing them to the event. Now it is other poets speeding to the memorial of the Nobel Prize-winning poet Wislawa Szymborska, who died this last week.
As a survivor and chronicler of the surrealistically violent 20th century, Szymborska became a poet of both national and global renown. Her life spanned many conflicts, Poland’s occupation and destruction by both Germany and Russia, and a chaotic independence. She never wavered in her observations.
Hers was an unblinking eye, yet clarity never gave way to cynicism. In the lines of her poems there is a quiet humor and compassion. With the soft whispering sounds of Polish, Szymborska spoke the insight of an outsider, of a woman, of a human being standing outside the steel ring of dogma.
In the poem ”On Death, Without Exaggeration,” she writes with her usual gentle wryness:
It can’t take a joke,
find a star, make a bridge,
It knows nothing about weaving, mining, farming,
building ships, or baking cakes.
In our planning for tomorrow,
it has the final word,
which is always beside the point.
