Often, Szymborska's
poems re-create the fleeting instant when disbelief is in suspension and an act
of the imagination can take place. – Dana Goodyear, Los Angeles Times
No reader, not even
poetry-phobes, should miss the bright revelations of Nobel laureate Szymborska.
[...] Szymborska is sharply ironic and lithely philosophical, pondering the
phenomenal precision of dreams and the elusiveness of meaning. The neat,
prancing lyrics collected in this slender, piercing book are delectable and
profound. --Booklist
VERMEER
So long as that woman
from the Rijksmuseum
in painted quiet and
concentration
keeps pouring milk day
after day
from the pitcher to
the bowl
the World hasn’t
earned
the world’s end
- Wislawa
Szymborska (tr. Clare Cavanagh and Stanislaw Baranczak)
When the Polish
Cultural Institute had an advance copy of this slim volume at its table at the
Brooklyn Book Festival in 2010, it drew more attention than any of the other
books on display. Readers eagerly await any new work by Szymborska, and
Polish critics have remarked that her work keeps getting better, when it seems
that it couldn’t be any richer or more refined than what’s come before.
Book cover courtesy of the publisher; jacket design by Martha Kennedy; jacket photograph © Joanna Helander
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