The Irony of Wislava Szymborska
In London, I remember the indignation. Surely the Nobel prize should have gone to Zbigniew Herbert, the Polish poet we loved – dissident, charismatic, much translated – not some woman we had barely heard of? I thought Polish poems should resemble films of Wajda, charged with the electricity of war. Szymborska’s poetry held no such glamour. She had not played a part in the Resistance. The poems were almost English in their texture, a bit like Larkin – though serene where he was glum – never expecting to fill a football stadium. Her voice was quieter than Cassandra’s – but equally we did not listen to her.