Winning the Nobel prize was a “Stolkholm tragedy” for one poet

“Szymborska, on the other hand, loathed the attention thrust upon her. She didn’t like talking about herself or her work, and moreover, as Janusz R. Kowalczyk puts it, ‘Szymborska did not enjoy ostentation or celebrations—being declared the Nobel laureate was considered ‘the Stockholm tragedy’ by her friends, as it forced her to give more interviews in a month than she had faced in her life.’ Clearly, her expostulations over the world’s indifference to poetry was not a disguised plea for fame. She loved poetry purely, a love that both permeates and radiates in the warmth of her language, in the unyielding tenderness of her observations.”

WHERE IS WISŁAWA SZYMBORSKA’S TEEMING CROWD? REMEMBERING THE GREAT POET 20 YEARS AFTER HER NOBEL PRIZE – Jonathan Russell Clark – Literary Hub – January 8, 2018

Cat in an Empty Apartment

Wislawa Szymborska, translated by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh

Die—you can’t do that to a cat.
Since what can a cat do
in an empty apartment?
Climb the walls?

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