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List Price: $17.00Amazon.com's Price: $11.56 You Save: $5.44 (32%)as of 03/20/2010 12:09 EDT
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 891.8517
EAN: 9780156011464
ISBN: 0156011468
Label: Mariner Books
Manufacturer: Mariner Books
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 296
Publication Date: November 16, 2000
Publisher: Mariner Books
Studio: Mariner Books
Features:- ISBN13: 9780156011464
- Condition: USED - GOOD
- Notes:
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Editorial Review:
Amazon.com Review:
All poets, according to Wislawa Szymborska, are in a perpetual dialogue with the phrase I don't know. "Each poem," she writes in her 1996 Nobel Lecture, "marks an effort to answer this statement, but as soon as the final period hits the page, the poet begins to hesitate, starts to realize that this particular answer was pure makeshift, absolutely inadequate." As a self-portrait, at least, this is fairly accurate. From the beginning, Szymborska has indeed wrestled with the demon of epistemology. Yet even in her earliest poems, such as "Atlantis," she delivered her speculations with a human--which is to say, a gently ironic--face:
They were or they weren't.
On an island or not.
An ocean or not an ocean
Swallowed them up or it didn't.
Fifteen years later, when her 1972 collection, Could Have, appeared, Szymborska seemed to have made some major inroads into her notorious ignorance. Now she confessed to at least a shred of comprehension, stressing, however, that such knowledge has come at a terrible price: "We read the letters of the dead like helpless gods, / but gods, nonetheless, since we know the dates that follow. / We know which debts will never be repaid. / Which widows will remarry with the corpse still warm." And even in her most recent work, the poet continues to gravitate toward the admirable emptiness of, say, the clouds: "Unburdened by memory of any kind, / they float easily over the facts." Ultimately, though, the joke is on Szymborska, whose poems have grown more witty, more humane, and more tender--in other words, more knowing--with each passing year. View with a Grain of Sand remains an excellent point of entry to Szymborska's oeuvre, but Poems New and Collected is the place to go for a wide-angle view of this superlative and sardonic writer.
Product Description:
Described by Robert Hass as "unquestionably one of the great living European poets" and by Charles Simic as "one of the finest poets living today," Szymborska mesmerizes her readers with poetry that captivates their minds and captures their hearts. This is the book that her many fans have been anxiously awaiting-the definitive, complete collection of poetry by the Nobel Prize-winning poet, including 164 poems in all, as well as the full text of her Nobel acceptance speech of December 7, 1996, in Stockholm. Beautifully translated by Stanislaw Bara«nczak and Clare Cavanagh, who won a 1996 PEN Translation Prize for their work, this volume is a must-have for all readers of poetry.
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
Wislawa Szymborska's poetry has this incredible but simple, accessible depth. The reader will most likely be surprised. When one thinks of most Eastern European poets, there seems to hover an element of melancholy as opposed to wonder. Szymborska has the wonder with an aura of detachment.
Reading this collection, I was also intrigued by her use of humor as in the case of 'Hitler's First Photograph' which highlights a baby Adolf. The language is silly, the way adults talk to babies but ... Read More
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As you read these poems, one must stop and ponder a bit. We are all basically the same, all over the world. Anyone in any country could relate to her feelings. Symborska shows us this, growing up through many tumultuous years in a war ridden and tortured country that never seems to get a break: Poland.
She writes deep and connects to all... who can take a moment and think about what she writes.
FOUR AM, is alone worth the price of this masterpiece.
Easy to see ... Read More
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If you're like most Americans, you read tons and tons of poetry, especially poetry by Polish Nobel Laureates. Well, maybe not so much. Actually, if you're craving a thoughtful read, something a bit challenging emotionally, then pick up a copy of this collection. The "all over the map" in the review title refers to the territory Ms. Szymborska covers, whether topical choice, attitude, frame of reference, stylistic ... there's bound to be a few works in here that hit you like a two-by-four, and others ... Read More
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This is a Valentine poem to Wislawa's poems.
I do not speak Polish, but my old mother does, and besides I find it
somewhat comforting just to have an interpreter and even that little
language barrier that leaves room for wonder. So while I can't read
what you exactly meant to say, I mean it exactly when I say I am
one person more than I was before I read you. Some do like poetry,
and your mind is poetry-minded. But what I like best that made me
write ... Read More
Rating: -
"Whatever inspiration is, it's born from a continuous "I don't know."...That is why I value that little phrase "I don't know so highly. It's small, but it flies on mighty wings. It expands our lives to include spaces within us as well as the outer expanses in which our tiny Earth hangs suspended...Poets, if they're genuine, must always keep repeating "I don't know"(Szymborska, The Poet and the World).
This excerpt from Syzmborska's Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech describes the mission in her ... Read More
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Dewey Decimal Number: 891.8517
EAN: 9780156011464
ISBN: 0156011468
Label: Mariner Books
Manufacturer: Mariner Books
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 296
Publication Date: November 16, 2000
Publisher: Mariner Books
Studio: Mariner Books