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richardwells's review against another edition
3.0
I'm not sure I know what makes an author a Nobel Laureate. Unequal parts talent, promotion, and politics, I suppose. According to the Nobel Prize webpage Wislawa Szymborska was awarded "for poetry that with ironic precision allows the historical and biological context to come to light in fragments of human reality." That's sufficiently obscure and vague to be a blanket statement that could cover lots of poets. Vague statements seem to be the modus operandi of the Nobel committee. Here's what they say about Octavio Paz: "for impassioned writing with wide horizons, characterized by sensuous intelligence and humanistic integrity." I think you could substitute one for the other and still fairly characterize either. I bring this up because now that Pani Szymborska has her prize, it will be used to promote her work "world without end, amen." Probably good for sales, but not necessarily for the poet. The Nobel is a pedestal, and once elevated the only way off is down...
"Here," is a collection of 27 poems that mirror the books title. Pani Szymborska is focused on what's here - and now. Things lit up with meaning, -some possessed of a "suchness" that grounds them like a red wheelbarrow; others that seem to arise out of the imagination like an antelope and a lioness in the poem, "An Occurrence." . The title poem, one of three of four really fine pieces, gives us, "...chairs and sorrows/scissors, transistors, tenderness, violins/teacups, dams, and quips." The poem "Divorce," gives us "the kids...the cat...the dog...the walls...the neighbors...the car..." etc. And, "Highway Accident," gives us "someone," doing any number of things. The lists aren't always of things one after the other, in some poems an item will get an entire stanza, and then we'll shift to another item, and another stanza. All of this "suchness" would drag if the poet weren't able to find some greater meaning in their array, and for the most part the poet comes through, although "Divorce," falls flat when it stretches for meaning and doesn't quite make it. Pani Szymborska's poems tend to start light, and though some may veer toward the mundane she provides many of them with insight that seems right, and unforced.
Wislawa Szymborska never comes across as cute, though on a few occasions she stumbles with end lines/thoughts that seem to be a little too neat. "Ella in Heaven" suffers from what I think are horrible closing lines that are also offensive as God calls Ella, who I imagine to be Ella Fitzgerald, "my black comfort, my well-sung stump." In or out of context I find that to be a bad line.
All in all, though, this is an entertaining collection, and worth reading. Are they exceptional and worthy of a Nobel Laureate - see paragraph 1.
Finally, the cover photo is a gorgeous black and white shot of the poet beatific; and to tell you the truth, I liked the poems, but I love the photo.
"Here," is a collection of 27 poems that mirror the books title. Pani Szymborska is focused on what's here - and now. Things lit up with meaning, -some possessed of a "suchness" that grounds them like a red wheelbarrow; others that seem to arise out of the imagination like an antelope and a lioness in the poem, "An Occurrence." . The title poem, one of three of four really fine pieces, gives us, "...chairs and sorrows/scissors, transistors, tenderness, violins/teacups, dams, and quips." The poem "Divorce," gives us "the kids...the cat...the dog...the walls...the neighbors...the car..." etc. And, "Highway Accident," gives us "someone," doing any number of things. The lists aren't always of things one after the other, in some poems an item will get an entire stanza, and then we'll shift to another item, and another stanza. All of this "suchness" would drag if the poet weren't able to find some greater meaning in their array, and for the most part the poet comes through, although "Divorce," falls flat when it stretches for meaning and doesn't quite make it. Pani Szymborska's poems tend to start light, and though some may veer toward the mundane she provides many of them with insight that seems right, and unforced.
Wislawa Szymborska never comes across as cute, though on a few occasions she stumbles with end lines/thoughts that seem to be a little too neat. "Ella in Heaven" suffers from what I think are horrible closing lines that are also offensive as God calls Ella, who I imagine to be Ella Fitzgerald, "my black comfort, my well-sung stump." In or out of context I find that to be a bad line.
All in all, though, this is an entertaining collection, and worth reading. Are they exceptional and worthy of a Nobel Laureate - see paragraph 1.
Finally, the cover photo is a gorgeous black and white shot of the poet beatific; and to tell you the truth, I liked the poems, but I love the photo.
nora_dlc's review against another edition
5.0
Quisiera memorizar estos poemas y tenerlos siempre en la punta de la lengua.
greenspe's review against another edition
4.0
I wouldn't start here if you haven't read anything else of hers, but if you're already a fan, you shouldn't miss it. Just as good as View With A Grain of Sand, but it's pretty short (about 40 pages).
I didn't love some of her new poems featured in the Collected Poems a few years ago and assumed that she had lost some of her energy, but "Here" is imaginative and disquieting enough to fit alongside her best. "In Fact Every Poem" is one of the weirdest she's ever written, a true accomplishment for a woman who has been publishing strange and unsettling poetry for nearly seventy years.
My favorite in this collection was "Teenager".
I didn't love some of her new poems featured in the Collected Poems a few years ago and assumed that she had lost some of her energy, but "Here" is imaginative and disquieting enough to fit alongside her best. "In Fact Every Poem" is one of the weirdest she's ever written, a true accomplishment for a woman who has been publishing strange and unsettling poetry for nearly seventy years.
My favorite in this collection was "Teenager".
riinahelmiina's review against another edition
4.0
Olen ollut tänä vuonna taas kerran todella huono lukemaan runoja, mutta kannatti tarttua suosituksesta Szymborskan tuotantoon. Ihastuin! Minulla on vahva tunne, että Täällä saattaa kivuta viiden tähden runokokoelmaksi: olen lukenut sen runot pariin kertaan, mutten vielä raaski palauttaa sitä kirjastoon vaan haluan palata sen maailmaan.
dvlavieri's review against another edition
3.0
For the longest time I could not appreciate poetry without form. In fact it is probably only in the last year that I have really grown to love and appreciate the style of 'free verse' which seemed to me, before, the realm of lazy poets. However, since then, some free verse poetry have become favorites of mine, Neruda's "Ode to Common Things" and "If You Forget Me" are poems I return to over and over, for their imagery and use of language in a way that, while not conforming to a structure per-se, follow some internal rhythm of their own, some inner logic, illusory contours which trace the subverted patterns of genius. This brilliance is sometimes found in Here by Wislawa Szymborska, but ultimately I was rather disappointed. I was introduced to the Polish poetess rather recently with her poem "First Love" which I thought was a wonderful mix of images and profound self-reflection. Her tone is casual and frank, but at times she chafes on something which seems infinitely wise. I apologize for quoting her a poem which is not in this collection:
In Here, there is still such profundity, but the language which pulled me in, the metaphoric power comparing loves to sighs, to breaths, inside of us, which I found ultimately lacking. This collection seemed a bit too political for my tastes, maybe a bit too coldly academic. There are some nice poems collected here, for example "Thoughts That Visit Me on Busy Streets" which begs the question:
They sayThis appraisal of first loves is very frank, and contrary to the frequent romanticized view of first loves, especially the rosy-glossed images of poets and novelists of the past centuries. She goes on to say:
the first love's most important.
That's very romantic,
but not my experience.
Other lovesHow true it is that, really, our first "loves" are barely sighs in us, once it has ended. They are the prelude quickly forgotten, the first swipe, the first attempt which does not count, only for practice. First loves prepare us for our second loves, but they stop there in importance, they are a primer. But Szymborska goes on to relate that these first loves, in fact, are our introduction to death, to ending. It is this first death which is the same as a first love: only practice. If our first loves were true, where real and powerful inside of us, we would never recover from them when they ended - it is that they are superficial and misguided that makes that first ending manageable, which toughens our skins but does not lacerate us, bleed us out.
still breathe deep inside me.
This one's too short of breath even to sigh.
In Here, there is still such profundity, but the language which pulled me in, the metaphoric power comparing loves to sighs, to breaths, inside of us, which I found ultimately lacking. This collection seemed a bit too political for my tastes, maybe a bit too coldly academic. There are some nice poems collected here, for example "Thoughts That Visit Me on Busy Streets" which begs the question:
Faces.This is an interesting concept but the imagery becomes quickly tiresome of ancient pharoahs and philosophers in jeans and scarves and sneakers and waving down cabs and picking their noses. There seems to be something lacking, some power of emotion, or some distancing from experience. I have never loved big idea poetry, writing about the abstractness of abstract things, comparing love to dusty white pigeons or bravery to a tawny lion, the apogee of genius to a distant ball of fire, or any of that other metaphorical nonsense which has circled tirelessly in the dryer of poetry, worn thin like old jeans. There is no poem in this collection which I want to commit to memory. That is probably the true test of poetry, of whether it should last. Whether it lives on pages in libraries or in the electronic annals of the internet: that does not matter, that is not life, that is a poor refuge for art. Poetry must live in the minds of the people who read it, who love it, who whisper lines to themselves on busy trains or on bad days when they have forgotten their umbrellas and they're late for work, and it's raining and it's cold. That is poetry, isn't it? I have memorized many lines of many poems: my mind is a sort of hodgepodge of poetic fragments, some which make me laugh, or make me think, or comfort me when I am sad, or lacerate my heart with honesty when I need it; they are collected scraps from all sorts, from Yeats and from Rilke, Neruda and Ronsard, Keats and Shelley, and some bruised and broken pieces of my own (which once or twice I've liked). And I won't be unfair to Mme. Szymborska, she is there too, and maybe this is not her best collection (not for me, anyway), but I have always loved a live from her poem "Nothing Twice" - and even if it is a bit hackneyed sounding or cliche, I will likely always remember it:
Billions of faces on the earth's surface.
Each different, so we're told,
from those that have been and will be.
But Nature—since who really understands her?—
may grow tired of her ceaseless labors
and so repeats earlier ideas
by supplying us
with preworn faces.
Why do we treat the fleeting day
with so much needless fear and sorrow?
It’s in its nature not to stay:
Today is always gone tomorrow.
mizato's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
5.0
ironi's review against another edition
4.0
The last week or so has been kind of terrible due to various reasons. It has forced me to ask questions that I didn't want to ask and consider things that I just didn't want to ever consider. Somehow, although nothing has technically changed, it feels like this week was life changing. I feel like I've grown. I can feel the direction of my life shifting during this week, my priorities are no longer the same and I'm not sure if they'll ever return to what they were or if I'm happy with where they are now. That's incredibly jarring (future me is probably rolling their eyes about this dramatic statement).
And when things go terribly, I am so very grateful poets like Szymborska exist. It genuinely felt like she was speaking to me, in the most self centered way possible. Her words were a huge comfort. It was like visiting a grandparent and having them give you perspective that everything is going to be fine, even when it all feels like it's collapsing into itself (I'm pretty sure that I've cried more times this week than in the past three months but this is fine because as Szymborska says "You may choose/ where to be or not to be/ to overpass or pull over/ only not to overlook.").
I don't know why these poems spoke so much to me. Is it because there's something comforting about a Nobel winning poet so deeply paranoid about people writing better poetry than her? Or perhaps it's because these poems are so intimate? They're dark and light at the same time ("The body has its own installment plan"), they're descriptive and they're gentle. Usually when I think about famous writers, I imagine thick prose and big words but Szymborska writes clearly and elegantly without needing to thicken her words.
I have so much to do and this week is far from being over but I'm so glad I took an hour to read this. I hope it'll stay with me, that I'll be able to hold on to Szymborska's thoughts on dreams, labyrinths, faith, family and poetry. If you're looking for some poetry, I really think you can't go wrong with this collection.
What I'm Taking With Me
- It feels a little wrong to count this as my Polish book for my reading challenge because the poems here are so international but at the same time, I don't have any other idea for a Polish book and well, she is Polish.
- I'm positive at least some of my panic is coming from the realization that my birthday is coming up and I'm already starting up with the anxiety.
- And I'm just so so tired, who knew critical thinking was so exhausting
And when things go terribly, I am so very grateful poets like Szymborska exist. It genuinely felt like she was speaking to me, in the most self centered way possible. Her words were a huge comfort. It was like visiting a grandparent and having them give you perspective that everything is going to be fine, even when it all feels like it's collapsing into itself (I'm pretty sure that I've cried more times this week than in the past three months but this is fine because as Szymborska says "You may choose/ where to be or not to be/ to overpass or pull over/ only not to overlook.").
I don't know why these poems spoke so much to me. Is it because there's something comforting about a Nobel winning poet so deeply paranoid about people writing better poetry than her? Or perhaps it's because these poems are so intimate? They're dark and light at the same time ("The body has its own installment plan"), they're descriptive and they're gentle. Usually when I think about famous writers, I imagine thick prose and big words but Szymborska writes clearly and elegantly without needing to thicken her words.
I have so much to do and this week is far from being over but I'm so glad I took an hour to read this. I hope it'll stay with me, that I'll be able to hold on to Szymborska's thoughts on dreams, labyrinths, faith, family and poetry. If you're looking for some poetry, I really think you can't go wrong with this collection.
What I'm Taking With Me
- It feels a little wrong to count this as my Polish book for my reading challenge because the poems here are so international but at the same time, I don't have any other idea for a Polish book and well, she is Polish.
- I'm positive at least some of my panic is coming from the realization that my birthday is coming up and I'm already starting up with the anxiety.
- And I'm just so so tired, who knew critical thinking was so exhausting
myllena's review against another edition
4.0
favoritos: Teenager, Foraminifera, Divorce, Example, Identification (!!!), Metaphysics, Absence, An interview with Atropos (!!!) e In fact every poem.