POETRY ON THE WEB * WRITERS ON THE WEB * NEWSLETTER

"The web of our life is of mingled yarn, good and ill together." -- Shakespeare

October 4, 1996

I am both happy and proud to let you know that Wislawa Szymborska was awarded the Nobel Literature Prize this week. She has been a candidate for several years, and it is great to see her finally earn the award at age 73. She has many loved poems translated into English, including "The End and the Beginning", and "People On The Bridge." One of my personal favorites is:

Hitler's first photograph

And who's this little fellow in his itty-bitty robe?
That's tiny baby Adolf, the Hitlers' little boy!
Will he grow up to be an L.L.D.?
Or a tenor in Vienna's Opera House?
Whose teensy hand is this, whose little ear and eye and nose?
Whose tummy full of milk, we just don't know:
printer's, doctor's, merchant's, priest's?
Where will those tootsy-wootsies finally wander?
To a garden, to a school, to an office, to a bride?
Maybe to the Buergermeister's daughter?

Precious little angel, mommy's sunshine, honey bun.
While he was being born, a year ago,
there was no dearth of signs on the earth and in the sky:
spring sun, geraniums in windows,
the organ-grinder's music in the yard,
a lucky fortune wrapped in rosy paper.
Then just before the labor his mother's fateful dream.
A dove seen in a dream means joyful news--
if it is caught, a long-awaited guest will come.
Knock knock, who's there, it's Adolf's heartschen knocking.

A little pacifier, diaper, rattle, bib,
our bouncing boy, thank God and knock on wood, is well,
looks just like his folks, like a kitten in a basket,
like the tots in every other family album.
Sh-h-h, let's not start crying, sugar,
The camera will click from under that black hood.

The Klinger Atelier, Grabenstrasse, Braunen.
And Braunen is a small but worthy town--
honest businesses, obliging neighbors,
smell of yeast dough, of gray soap.
No one hears howling dogs, or fate's footsteps.
A history teacher loosens his collar
and yawns over homework.

- trans. Baranczak/Cavanagh

Poland deserves to be proud of it's rich poetic heritage. Wislawa Szymborska is the 9th woman to win the literature award in 95 years.

This is the second year in a row that a poet has won, and the second year in a row that a European has won. Folks to watch for in coming years include Hugo Claus from Belgium, Ismail Kadare from Albania, Jaan Kross from Estonia, Gyorgy Konrad from Hungary, Doris Lessing from Britain, Jose Saramago and Antonio Lobo Antunes from Portugal, John Ashbery of the United States, and Bei Dao of China.

Irish poet Seamus Heaney was last years winner. One of my personal favorites of his is:

Oracle

Hide in the hollow trunk
of the willow tree,
its listening familiar,
until, as usual, they
cuckoo your name
across the fields.
You can hear them
draw the poles of stiles
as they approach
calling you out:
small mouth and ear
in a woody cleft,
lobe and larynx
of the mossy places.

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Directory Of Poetry Publishers From Dustbooks:
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