Wislawa Szymborska News, Pictures & Buzz

Free Will Astrology: Your weekly horoscope, July 17-23 - Columns  Austin Chronicle

Paul Kelly releases surprise new album ‘Forty Days’  NME.com

Readers share their favorite poems of comfort  Christian Science Monitor

The last poems of Szymborska | Culture  Explica

CitySpace At Home: Author Talks From Our Bookstore Partners  WBUR

‘There’s a Quiet All Over the World’  The New York Times

‘I’m a social vegan’  The Tribune India

A bold, startling book | News, Sports, Jobs  The Adirondack Daily Enterprise

Essential California: The ABCs of reopening  Los Angeles Times

How Poetry Can Bear Witness to Crisis and Revolution  The Nation

I prefer Connect Four  Otago Daily Times

Utah's poet laureate mourns festival cancellation due to the coronavirus. But she's got some poetic advice for those stuck in quarantine.  Salt Lake Tribune

Walking and reading alone through pandemic days  Maclean's

Letter from Sweden: ‘We are heading into the storm’  Financial Times

Essential California Week in Review: Big surge, little relief  Los Angeles Times

Marriage, interrupted: Ian Brown and Johanna Schneller keep romance alive on separate floors  The Globe and Mail

Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk: why populist nostalgia will pass  Financial Times

I grew up in a happy council estate - we need to give that back to children  iNews

A selection of poems chosen by singer-songwriter Paul Kelly is filled with interesting choices  The Canberra Times

Poland celebrates Nobel win for Olga Tokarczuk - Xinhua | English.news.cn  Xinhua

JoyedPanda: RT @LuciaT&^@an: @MomiraM**ika @adnz_ Excellent post, M**ika😍 @MomiraM**ika When I pr**ounce the word Future, the first syllable already b…

MaqboolAVirjee: RT @EwaWisniewska78: No day will happen again No two nights are alike Two of the same kisses Two identical looks in the eyes.💞 Wisława Szym…

CherylHeneveld: "Notes from a N^!!existent Himalayan Expediti^!!" by Wislawa Szymborska (F... https://t.co/m3PFGG4pjK via @YouTube

gabrielanth^%&yp: RT @EwaWisniewska78: No day will happen again No two nights are alike Two of the same kisses Two identical looks in the eyes.💞 Wisława Szym…

nola_geurl: RT @PoetNotRockStar: “I sometimes dream of situati@#*#s that can’t possibly come true. I audaciously imagine” — Wislawa Szymborska https://t.…

wislawa szymborska hitler's first photograph What is the meaning?

'Vermeer' - Wislawa Szymborska 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. Can you please explain this poem a little? I don't get it. Can you please explain the" the World hasn’t earned the world’s end." part? PLEASE?

Wislawa Szymborska - Rubens' Women (1) Translated from Polish by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh Titanettes, female fauna, naked as the rumbling of barrels. They roost in trampled beds, asleep, with mouths agape, ready to crow. Their pupils have fled into flesh and sound the glandular depths from which yeast seeps into their blood. Daughters of the Baroque. Dough thickens in troughs, baths steam, wines blush, cloudy piglets careen across the sky, triumphant trumpets neigh the carnal alarm. O pumpkin plump! 0 pumped-up corpulence inflated double by disrobing and tripled by your tumultuous poses! O fatty dishes of love! Their skinny sisters woke up earlier, before dawn broke and shone upon the painting. And no one saw how they went single file along the canvas's unpainted side. Exiled by style. Only their ribs stood out. With birdlike feet and palms, they strove to take wing on their jutting shoulder blades. The thirteenth century would have given them golden haloes. The twentieth, silver screens. The seventeenth, alas, holds nothing for the unvoluptuous. For even the sky bulges here with pudgy angels and a chubby god - thick-whiskered Phoebus, on a sweaty steed, riding straight into the seething bedchamber. Wislawa Szymborska - Rubens' Women (2) Translated by Joanna Trzeciak Herculasses, a feminine fauna. Naked as the crashing of barrels. Cooped up atop trampled beds. They sleep with mouths poised to crow. Their pupils have retreated in the depths, and penetrate to the heart of their glands, trickling yeast into their blood. Daughters of the Baroque. Dough bloats in a bowl, baths are steaming, wines are blushing. piglets of cloud are dashing across the sky, trumpets neigh in physical alarm. O pumpkinned, O excessive ones, doubled by your unveiling, trebled by your violent poses, fat love dishes. Their skinny sisters got up earlier, before dawn broke within the painting, and no one saw them walking single file on the unpainted side of the canvas. Exiles of style. Ribs all counted. Birdlike feet and hands. They try to ascend on gaunt shoulderblades. The thirteenth century would have given them a golden backdrop. The twentieth, a silver screen. But the seventeenth has nothing for the flat-chested. For even the sky curves in relief–– curvaceous angles, a curvaceous god–– a moustached Apollo astride a sweaty steed enters the steaming bedchamber. Wislawa Szymborska - The Women of Rubens (3) Translated from the Polish by Magnus J. Krynski and Robert A. Maguire Giantesses, female fauna, naked as the rumbling of barrels. They sprawl in trampled beds, sleep with mouths agape for crowing. Their eyes have fled into the depths and penetrate to the very core of glands from which yeast seeps into the blood. Daughters of the Baroque. Dough rises in kneading–troughs, baths are asteam, wines glow ruby, piglets of cloud gallop across the sky trumpets neigh an alert of the flesh. O meloned, O excessive ones, doubled by the flinging off of shifts, trebled by the violence of posture, you lavish dishes of love! Their slender sisters had risen earlier, before dawn broke in the picture. No one noticed how, single file, they had moved to the canvas's unpainted side. Exiles of style. Their ribs all showing, their feet and hands of birdlike nature. Trying to take wing on bony shoulder blades. The thirteenth century would have given them a golden background. the twentieth––a silver screen. The seventeenth had nothing for the flat of chest. For even the sky is convex convex the angels and convex the god–– mustachioed Phoebus who on a sweaty mount rides into the seething alcove. Pretty much anything that you may have noticed will do, such as tone, structure, etc.

I’ll never find out now What A. thought of me. If B. ever forgave me in the end. Why C. pretended everything was fine. What part D. played in E.’s silence. What F. had been expecting, if anything. Why G. forgot when she knew perfectly well. What H. had to hide. What I. wanted to add. If my being around meant anything to J. and K. and the rest of the alphabet.

after Wislawa Szymborska.