Welcome to Spring Term 2023!

Welcome everyone. I'm coming back after the holidays. Rested and ready for a new term, a new module "Creative media production". Firstly, I would like everyone reading my posts to read about the person who inspired me.

"The end and the beginning" are poems by Wislawa Szymborskiej that I'd like to share with you as my first-semester post.

"After every war
someone has to clean up
What a mess
it won't do itself.

Someone has to push the rubble
on roadsides,
so that they can pass
carts full of corpses.

Somebody's got to get bogged down
in slime and ashes,
sofa springs,
glass splinters
and bloody rags.

Someone has to bring the beam
to support the wall,
someone glazes the window
and put the door on the hinges.

It's not photogenic
and takes years.
All the cameras are gone now
for another war.

We need the bridges back
and new stations.
There will be sleeves in shreds
from buttoning up.

Someone with a broom in his hands
still remembers what it was like.
Someone is listening
he nods his unbroken head.
But already near them
the trays will spin
who will be bored.

Someone else sometimes
will dig out from the bush
rotten arguments
and transfers them to the garbage heap.

Those who knew
what was going on here
must give way to those
what little they know.
And less than little.
And finally, nothing.

In the grass that has grown
causes and effects,
someone has to lie down
with an ear in the teeth
and stare at the clouds".

The End and the Beginning, published in 1993, may have finally decided about awarding the Nobel Prize to Szymborska three years later. The author took seven years to write this book because she applied the highest standards to her poems and selected them carefully. Some Like Poetry, Hatred, or Cat in an Empty Apartment are among the most celebrated, well-known, and frequently discussed poetry by critics.

Wieslawa Szymborska Krzysztof Jastrzebski/East News

“In the beginning, poetry was everything, and bound speech expressed both feelings and emotions
elementary information, from prayer through codes of savoir vivre and chronicles from history to the principles of the art of writing. (…) When I think with a plot, I write, I think with a column, I'm writing a poem. Maybe this is how I go back to the sources. I'm not the only one. It would be good to move a little further from those areas from which poetry has left or remained
suppressed." (Wislawa Szymborska)

In the New York Times Book Review, Stanislaw Baranczak wrote, “The typical lyrical situation on which a Szymborska poem is founded is the confrontation between the directly stated or implied opinion on an issue and the question that raises doubt about its validity. The opinion not only reflects some widely shared belief or is representative of some widespread mind-set, but also, as a rule, has a certain doctrinaire ring to it: the philosophy behind it is usually speculative, anti-empirical, prone to hasty generalizations, collectivist, dogmatic and intolerant.”

What can I say about her: Wiesława Szymborska was mysterious but loved by everyone. She was also a modest person, but everyone admired her greatly. She was a serious and witty woman, you could always meet her in a large crowd, and yet she stood on the sidelines. Intellectual, philosopher, rational dreamer. From an early age, I was fascinated by her poetry. I read a lot at that time and recently I accidentally fell into her hands with a book of poetry and that's how I remembered those times. I highly recommend reading and delving into the times in which this wonderful woman lived. Szymborska died at her home in Krakow on February 1, 2012, but like me and probably many other people, she believes that she is still out there somewhere and always will be. That's why I wanted to start with this poem, something ends something begins, in this case, new year, new semester, new me :). I could probably say a lot more about her, but one thing I know for sure, she inspired me to do something new and I think I will achieve it.

Reference :

Baranczak, S. (1996) The reluctant poet, The New York Times. The New York Times. 
Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/1996/10/27/books/the-reluctant-poet.html (Accessed: January 9, 2023).
Polska, G.W. (2012) Szymborska Przekazała Archiwum Bibliotece Jagiellońskiej, www.money.pl. Available at:  https://www.money.pl/gospodarka/tokfm/artykul/szymborska;przekazala;archiwum;bibliotece;jagiellonskiej,21,0,1132565.html (Accessed: January 9, 2023).
Szymborska, W. (no date) Koniec I Początek, Wisława Szymborska. Available at: https://poezja.org/wz/Wislawa_Szymborska/97/Koniec_i_poczatek (Accessed: January 9, 2023).