Wisława Szymborska - Encounters with Polish Literature - S2E2

Wisława Szymborska with Clare Cavanagh (Northwestern University)

Wisława Szymborska (1923-2012) spoke to a broad international audience through her poetry that focused on private everyday perception as it unfolded often in interior spaces, revealing an interior space in her mind that her readers could recognize in their own minds.

Szymborska was famously reclusive and enigmatic about her own biography. She was born in Kórnik near Poznań and spent most of her life in Kraków achieving great popularity in print without cultivating an outspoken public persona, keeping to a close circle of friends and giving intimate readings to small audiences by design. Many of her poems are about paintings, particularly works of the Dutch Golden Age by painters like Vermeer whom she appreciated for their reflections on interiority—a girl reading a letter or pouring milk from a jug. She made collages on paper out of words and images from print sources, and also made collage-poems out of fragments of overheard conversation. She was thrust into the public eye when she received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1996, but maintained her persona as best she could by not taking on the mantle of the national poet as prophet. She used her earnings to create a foundation that gives the annual Wisława Szymborska Award for the best book of poetry from the previous year and provides stipends and residencies for writers.

In this episode we speak with Szymborska’s current main English-language translator, Clare Cavanagh, about what it was like to work with Szymborska, and we look at several of her poems from her earliest work in the late 1940s and early ‘50s, to her political shift marked by the collection, Calling Out to Yeti, to later works including a personal perspective on her very popular “Cat in an Empty Apartment.” We also touch upon her love of kitsch, her fascination with boxing, and look at a few of her collages. Toward the end of the discussion we offer a tribute to the editor, Drenka Willen, who championed literature in translation during her long career at Harcourt, and helped many great international writers, including Wisława Szymborska, reach wide audiences in English and go on to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Encounters with Polish Literature is a new video series for anyone interested in literature and the culture of books and reading. Each month, host David A. Goldfarb presents a new topic in conversation with an expert on that author or book or movement in Polish literature.

Learn more about this episode, and see the biography of the guest on the Polish Cultural Institute New York's website. The linked page includes a bibliography of works in English by and about Szymborska:
https://instytutpolski.pl/newyork/202...

Access the Playlist of the entire series:
https://bit.ly/Encounters-ALL