Here

Wislawa Szymborska, Szymborska, Wislawa

• Publisher: Ecco
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780547592091
• eBook ISBN: 9780547504643
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Ancient Poetry
• Index: Literature

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.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Table of Contents

Copyright

Here

Tutaj

Thoughts That Visit Me on Busy Streets

Myśli nawiedzające mnie na ruchliwych ulicach

An Idea

Pomysł

Teenager

Kilkunastoletnia

Hard Life with Memory

Trudne życie z pamięcią

Microcosmos

Mikrokosmos

Foraminifera

Otwornice

Before a Journey

Przed podróżą

Divorce

Rozwód

Assassins

Zamachowcy

Example

Przykład

Identification

Identyfikacja

Nonreading

Nieczytanie

Portrait from Memory

Portret z pamięci

Dreams

Sny

In a Mail Coach

W dyliżansie

Ella in Heaven

Ella w niebie

Vermeer

Vermeer

Metaphysics

Metafizyka

Absence

Nieobecność

Highway Accident

Wypadek drogowy

The Day After—Without Us

Nazajutrz—Bez Nas

An Occurrence

Zdarzenie

An Interview with Atropos

Wywiad z Atropos

Greek Statue

Grecki posąg

Labyrinth

Labirynt

In Fact Every Poem

Właściwie każdy wiersz

Coming in April 2015

About the Author

About the Translators

Footnotes

First Mariner Books edition 2012
Copyright © 2010 by The Wisława Szymborska Foundation
English translation © 2010 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company

 

All rights reserved

 

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

 

www.hmhco.com

 

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Szymborska, Wisława.
[Poems. English & Polish. Selections]
Here : new poems / Wisława Szymborska ; translated from the Polish by Clare Cavanagh and Stanislaw Barańczak.
p. cm.
Polish and English.
ISBN 978-0-547-36461-2     ISBN 978-0-547-59209-1 (pbk.)
1. Szymborska, Wisława—Translations into English. I. Cavanagh, Clare. II. Barańczak, Stanislaw, date. III. Title.
PC7178.Z9A222 2010
891.8'517—dc22

 

eISBN 978-0-547-50464-3
v3.0215

 

This book contains all the poems that appeared in Tutaj (Znak, 2009) and some of the poems in Dwukropek (Znak, 2005).

 

The following poems previously appeared elsewhere: “Teenager,” Granta; “Microcosmos,” New York Review of Books; “Foraminifera,” Common Knowledge; “Thoughts That Visit Me on Busy Streets,” TriQuarterly; “Identification,” “Dreams,” Poetry.

 

In this ebook, the English translation appears before the original Polish version of each poem.

Here

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.

There may be more of everything elsewhere,

but for reasons left unspecified they lack paintings,

picture tubes, pierogies, handkerchiefs for tears.

Here we have countless places with vicinities.

You may take a liking to some,

give them pet names,

protect them from harm.

There may be comparable places elsewhere,

but no one thinks they’re beautiful.

Like nowhere else, or almost nowhere,

you’re given your own torso here,

equipped with...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• Copyright
• Here
• Tutaj
• Thoughts That Visit Me on Busy Streets
• Myśli nawiedzające mnie na ruchliwych ulicach
• An Idea
• Pomysł
• Teenager
• Kilkunastoletnia
• Hard Life with Memory
• Trudne życie z pamięcią
• Microcosmos
• Mikrokosmos
• Foraminifera
• Otwornice
• Before a Journey
• Przed podróżą
• Divorce
• Rozwód
• Assassins
• Zamachowcy
• Example
• Przykład
• Identification
• Identyfikacja
• Nonreading
• Nieczytanie
• Portrait from Memory
• Portret z pamięci
• Dreams
• Sny
• In a Mail Coach
• W dyliżansie
• Ella in Heaven
• Ella w niebie
• Vermeer
• Vermeer
• Metaphysics
• Metafizyka
• Absence
• Nieobecność
• Highway Accident
• Wypadek drogowy
• The Day After—Without Us
• Nazajutrz—Bez Nas
• An Occurrence
• Zdarzenie
• An Interview with Atropos
• Wywiad z Atropos
• Greek Statue
• Grecki posąg
• Labyrinth
• Labirynt
• In Fact Every Poem
• Właściwie każdy wiersz
• Coming in April 2015
• About the Author
• About the Translators
• Footnotes