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Title: View with a Grain of Sand: Selected Poems by Wislawa Szymborska, Stanisaw Baranczak, Clare Cavanagh ISBN: 0-15-600216-7 Publisher: Harvest Books Pub. Date: May, 1995 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (11 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Words of truth and beauty.
Comment: I never cared much for poetry, but this book has changed my mind. I - who some might consider uneducated - am curious about what is experienced, within us and without us, in life. Still, I find a lot of poetry difficult to understand since an education from Oxford or Harvard seems a requirment to get through it. This wasn't the case with the poems in this book. I'm able to digest much of the words and pharses in Szymborska's poetry which evoke different images, feelings and thoughts as easily as reading fictional prose. I even had shivers sent through my body reading a poem in this book. This existential jolt happens only rarely and only when I listen to music which affects me deeply. This is poetry I can appreciate.
Rating: 5
Summary: Nice little collection from a Nobel Prize winner
Comment: ...Containing over eighty poems from seven original collections, this book serves as a well-rounded and pleasant introduction to Szymborska's work. This is a good choice for anyone interested in good poetry, women under communist regimes, or Polish literature.
Rating: 5
Summary: Another praise, from a younger reader
Comment: This book was and still is my first poetry book; not because I haven't read anyone else's, but it's the first compilation that I was really willing to pay the often outrageous prices for. (LOL) I am not an avid poetry reader, nor am I familiar with the current favorite contemporary poets, but I find that she really does succinctly portray "life's improbability as well as its transient beauty" quite well.
As a younger reader , I do have a bit of a problem identifying with the poetry that she writes pre-1972 (that is, the first few sections before the 'Could Have' section), because I don't really know much about it. As a note though, I probably should say that 'Nothing Twice,' which is about the probabilities of chance, from the pre-1972 section has been a real gem. Anyhow, the travelogues, the places, the books are things that frankly, I'd ask my parents and they probably wouldn't know either, or know very little about. I suppose if I researched enough, I would have no trouble understanding her message, but the stuff I really bought this book for was the pro-1972 sections. I can identify the issues because they're fairly general knowledge and have a certain mocking humor to some of them, but the words do just pull you in. The poems are addressed to one, and to all, and you feel like you're part of the whole. There are instances in which you feel like she's writing about you and the instances you've gone through, and that's what makes you feel amazed at the depth of understanding she has on these matters.
I first discovered her poetry in my high school English class and was surprised to find this book as the only book available in my favorite bookstore (and costing almost triple the cost of a volume of poetry that must have been 600 pages long, with of course long-dead, long-cherished poets). Oh, wait--I did find another book containing her work (that I don't remember the name of) but I bought this one because there were simply more poems that I liked. After a month or two of muddling around and waiting for the price drop (which it didn't), I just gave up and bought it. I can't say that I've regretted that decision.
And...if you still have trouble deciding, the Nobel Prize for Literature she won should be more than enough of a pull to help you decide. It wasn't as much of a deciding factor for me, but it's always nice to know that somewhere in the depths of the blackhole that is my room, I actually have nobel prize literature that I understand and can recommend to others...
My favorite poems from her have been 'Could Have,' 'The Onion,' 'Discovery,' 'True love,' 'Under One Small Star,' 'Pi,' of course 'View with a grain of Sand' because of wordplay, but I find that every time I re-read it, I uncover more about the poems and so that favorites list keeps on getting longer and longer.
It may sound a little strange, but I keep it with me when I travel for long periods of time away from home and turn to it when I have that rare solitary moment to really think about life and what its inner workings are because it just gives such a realistic criticism that you sort of go...wow. Never really thought about it like that before.
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Title: Sounds, Feelings, Thoughts by Wislawa Szymborska, Magnus J. Kruyski, Robert A. Maguire ISBN: 0691013802 Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 01 August, 1981 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Nonrequired Reading: Prose Pieces by Wislawa Szymborska, Clare Cavanagh ISBN: 0151006601 Publisher: Harcourt Pub. Date: October, 2002 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
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Title: Miracle Fair: Selected Poems of Wislawa Szymborska by Wislawa Szymborska, Joanna Trzeciak ISBN: 0393049396 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: May, 2001 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: New and Collected Poems : 1931-2001 by Czeslaw Milosz ISBN: 0060514485 Publisher: Ecco Pub. Date: 25 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Dario Fo Plays: 1 by Dario Fo ISBN: 0413154203 Publisher: Methuen Publishing, Ltd Pub. Date: October, 1997 List Price(USD): $21.00 |
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