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Take Your Poet to Work: Wisława Szymborska

By Will Willingham 12 Comments

Wisława Szymborska shirt pocketIt’s one thing to start every day with a poem. But another altogether to start your day with a poet. One of our favorite days of the year is fast approaching, when we encourage people around the world to take their favorite poet to work for the day.

Take Your Poet to Work Day is coming July 15, 2015

To help you play and celebrate with us, we’re releasing poets each week in a compact, convenient format you can tuck in your pocket, tool belt, or lunchbox. We started our celebration two years ago with Sara Teasdale,  Pablo Neruda,  T. S. Eliot,  Rumi,  Edgar Allan Poe,  and the reclusive Emily Dickinson (for folks who work at home). We even released a full collection,  The Haiku Masters: Matsuo Basho, Yosa Buson, and Kobayashi Issa. And last year, we added Langston Hughes,  Adrienne Rich,  John Keats,  William Butler Yeats,  Christina Rossetti and the beloved 20th-century American poet, Sylvia Plath.

Because you can never have too many poets in your lunch box (or your desk drawer), we have a new collection of poets to release this year, including the Bard of Avon William Shakespeare,  beloved poet Maya Angelou, iconic American poet Robert Frost,  and Russian poet Anna Akhmatova. Today, we welcome Polish poet Wisława Szymborska to the Take Your Poet to Work Day poet collection.

Take Your Poet to Work: Wisława Szymborska

Take Your Poet to Work Day Wisława Szymborska

Get your own downloadable version of Take Your Poet to Work Day Wisława Szymborska that you can print, color and cut out for the big day.

Wisława Szymborska was born in Poland in 1923. As a poet and essayist, she became very popular in Poland, gaining international popularity when she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1996.

She has been called the “Mozart of Poetry” for her work, which is notable for its dark wit, irony and contradiction. Szymborska’s poems are often written against the backdrop of the violence of her experience having lived through the second World War and the rise of communism.

As a member of the Communist Party and part of the intellectual class, her early work reflected communist philosophies, which she later denounced.

Szymborska, who lived most of her life in Krakow, published 15 collections of poetry, six of which have been translated into English. She died in 2012.

Cat in an Empty Apartment

Die—you can’t do that to a cat.
Since what can a cat do
in an empty apartment?
Climb the walls?
Rub up against the furniture?
Nothing seems different here
but nothing is the same.
Nothing’s been moved
but there’s more space.
And at nighttime no lamps are lit.

Footsteps on the staircase,
but they’re new ones.
The hand that puts fish on the saucer
has changed, too.

Something doesn’t start
at its usual time.
Something doesn’t happen
as it should.
Someone was always, always here,
then suddenly disappeared
and stubbornly stays disappeared.

Every closet’s been examined.
Every shelf has been explored.
Excavations under the carpet turned up nothing.
A commandment was even broken:
papers scattered everywhere.
What remains to be done.
Just sleep and wait.

Just wait till he turns up,
just let him show his face.
Will he ever get a lesson
on what not to do to a cat.
Sidle toward him
as if unwilling
and ever so slow
on visibly offended paws,
and no leaps or squeals at least to start.

—Wisława Szymborska, translated from the Polish byStanisław Barańczak and Clare Cavanagh

Learn more about Take Your Poet to Work Day and our featured poets

Discover more Poets and Poems

Explore more Wisława Szymborska

Post and illustrations by LW Lindquist.

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Will Willingham
Will Willingham
Director of Many Things; Senior Editor, Designer and Illustrator at Tweetspeak Poetry
I used to be a claims adjuster, helping people and insurance companies make sense of loss. Now, I train other folks with ladders and tape measures to go and do likewise. Sometimes, when I’m not scaling small buildings or crunching numbers with my bare hands, I read Keats upside down. My first novel is Adjustments.
Will Willingham
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Filed Under: Blog, Cat Poems, poetry, Take Your Poet to Work Day, Wislawa Szymborska

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About Will Willingham

I used to be a claims adjuster, helping people and insurance companies make sense of loss. Now, I train other folks with ladders and tape measures to go and do likewise. Sometimes, when I’m not scaling small buildings or crunching numbers with my bare hands, I read Keats upside down. My first novel is Adjustments.

Comments

  1. Maureen Doallas says

    July 1, 2015 at 10:21 am

    I’ve been reading and re-reading her collected poems. She’s a favorite.

    Reply
    • Will Willingham says

      July 1, 2015 at 2:15 pm

      I go back to that one now and then too, Maureen. Such a great collection.

      Reply
  2. L. L. Barkat says

    July 1, 2015 at 10:47 am

    I might just have to take her and Anna to tea! (It would be a lively conversation, no doubt 🙂 )

    Reply
    • Will Willingham says

      July 1, 2015 at 2:16 pm

      Perhaps you can surreptitiously film the conversation for us. 🙂

      Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Take Your Poet to Work: William Wordsworth - says:
    June 9, 2016 at 10:13 am

    […] Maya Angelou, and iconic American poet Robert Frost, Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, Polish poet Wisława Szymborska, and America’s poet, Walt […]

    Reply
  2. Take Your Poet to Work: Elizabeth Barrett Browning - says:
    June 15, 2016 at 8:01 am

    […] Maya Angelou, and iconic American poet Robert Frost, Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, Polish poet Wisława Szymborska, and America’s poet, Walt […]

    Reply
  3. Take Your Poet to Work: Emily Brontë - says:
    June 30, 2016 at 2:23 pm

    […] Maya Angelou, and iconic American poet Robert Frost, Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, Polish poet Wisława Szymborska, and America’s poet, Walt […]

    Reply
  4. Take Your Poet to Work Day: On Location - says:
    July 20, 2016 at 5:01 am

    […] Wisława Szymborska and William Wordsworth came up with a plan to make Michelangelo’s Statue of David safe for work.   […]

    Reply
  5. TAKE YOUR POET TO WORK DAY: ON LOCATION | ELA in the middle says:
    July 23, 2016 at 11:48 am

    […] was ready for her close-up, butPablo Neruda and Sara Teasdale talked her into a trip to Hollywood. Wisława Szymborska and William Wordsworth came up with a plan to make Michelangelo’s Statue of David safe for […]

    Reply
  6. Take Your Poet to Work Day: Rosalía de Castro - says:
    July 5, 2018 at 8:01 am

    […] Angelou, and iconic American poet Robert Frost,  Russian poet Anna Akhmatova,  Polish poet Wisława Szymborska,  and America’s poet, Walt […]

    Reply
  7. Take Your Poet to Work Day: Rosario Castellanos - says:
    July 12, 2018 at 8:01 am

    […] Angelou, and iconic American poet Robert Frost,  Russian poet Anna Akhmatova,  Polish poet Wisława Szymborska,  and America’s poet, Walt […]

    Reply
  8. Take Your Poet to Work Day: Mary Oliver | says:
    September 11, 2019 at 8:00 pm

    […] Angelou, and iconic American poet Robert Frost,  Russian poet Anna Akhmatova,  Polish poet Wisława Szymborska,  and America’s poet, Walt […]

    Reply

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