The purpose of poetry is to remind us how difficult it is to remain just one person, for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors, and invisible guests come in and out at will. — Czeslaw Milosz, from “Ars Poetica?,” The Collected Poems: 1931-1987 (The Ecco Press, 1988) Advertisements
Yes, even when I don’t believe— there is a place in me inaccessible to unbelief, a patch of wild grace, a stubborn preserve, impenetrable, pain untouched by the sleeping body, music that builds its nest in silence. — Anna Kamienska, “Lack of Faith,” Astonishments: Selected Poems of Anna Kamienska. Paraclete Press (MA); First Edition edition… Continue reading Anna Kamienska
Even a passing moment has its fertile past, its Friday before Saturday, its May before June. — Wisława Szymborska, from “No Title Required,” Poems New and Collected 1957-1997, trans. Stanisław Barańczak and Clare Cavanagh, (Harcourt Brace & Co., 1998)
Let the people who never find true love keep saying that there’s no such thing. Their faith will make it easier for them to live and die. — Wisława Szymborska, from “True Love,” View With a Grain of Sand: Selected Poems. (Harcourt Brace; 1st edition, May 26, 1995)
My distinguishing marks are wonder and despair. — Wisława Szymborska, from “The Sky,” People on a Bridge. (• Forest Books; First Edition edition, April 1990)
A Note Life is the only way to get covered in leaves, catch your breath on the sand, rise on wings; to be a dog, or stroke its warm fur; to tell pain from everything it’s not; to squeeze inside events, dawdle in views, to seek the least of all possible mistakes. An extraordinary chance… Continue reading Wisława Szymborska
I had the dream where you read your own poems, Like those written sometime ago, only these were in the grey book written after death… And you look finer, paler and tinier every passing moment, Then you disappear. The last to vanish were your hands And only the poems were left unharmed And in the… Continue reading Grażyna Chrostowska
