From 28 March with the newspaper the second volume of the series “Poetry belongs to everyone”, dedicated to the Polish author, winner of the Nobel Prize, who conquered the public, because her verses do not live “against” the world but “with” the world
A great success always has a reason. That of Wisława Szymborska (1923-2012), who at a certain point in Italy became as popular as poetry authors rarely are, has a simple reason, which we could explain as follows. The poetry of this Polish author is inconceivable against the world, but con the world. Modern poetry has often been antagonistic, forgetting or perhaps bracketing, almost suspending, the question of the being of things, their irreducible splendor of gifts that we fail to understand. Modern poetry is frequently, as Montale says, a «following a wall / which has sharp shards of bottles on top». Or as in Wasteland by Thomas Stearns Eliot is a set of fragments that underpin ruins. It is a form of resistance against a bleak reality, in which, if anything, transpires, as in Eugenio Montale, the hypothesis of a liberation, of an escape through the “gap”.
I find this propensity to explore and make the most inclement territories habitable as a brotherhood, the sense of restlessness belongs to me, the search for what cannot be found, in short, feeling reality as insufficient (it is the experience of The infinite leopardian). And yet sometimes some poets, perhaps coming from arduous experiences, also remind us of the other half of the dilemma: the surprising nature of what exists, of what radiates and pulsates despite “the evil of living”. They bring before our eyes being as a principle of amazement, detail and particular as reasons for surprise. These poets remind us, without necessarily forgetting the horror of history and the pitiless laws of naturethe uniqueness and singularity of our being there: why exactly here and now, why exactly like this and not in another form?
Here we are, with this, already within Szymborska’s mature poetry: «Why so singular?/ This and not that? And what am I doing here?/ On a Tuesday? In a house and not in the nest?/ Skin and not scales? Not leaf, but face?/ Why in person only once? / And on earth? With a star next to it?/ After so many eras of non-presence?/ […]». It’s the poem Astonishmentwhich is part of the collection Any casepublished in ’72.
It’s not a question of ideology or perhaps bias. Sometimes the poets most open to the wonder of the world are those who conquer this point of view, often overcoming fences, walls, ideological barriers. For Szymborska, who grew up in real socialist Poland after being threatened by Nazism, it was like this: for her it is not a question of opposing a new positive ideology to another, of promulgating a kind of necessary happiness to be imposed on others (this is what totalitarian regimes do, as the author knew). No, it’s about remaining open to the secret of things, to their breath. It’s about laughing, and this was the heart of her speech on the occasion of the awarding of the Nobel Prize in Stockholm in 1996, which we we do not know. I quote a few passages from that speech, entitled The poet and the world: «Inspiration, whatever it is, comes from an incessant ‘I don’t know’». And again: «And all knowledge from which no new questions arise, soon becomes dead, loses the temperature that favors life». And in closing: «In the language of poetry, in which every word has weight, there is no longer anything ordinary and normal. No stone, and no clouds on it. No day, and no night to follow it. And above all no existence of any being in this world. That’s why, according to the Polish poet, “this world is amazing”.
Anyone who marvels and intrigues in the face of beings, days, things, not only as we would like them, but as they are, in their imperfection, cannot fail to mix a touch of comedy with tragedy, cannot fail to add to the mixture of own work a dose of levity. It was not for nothing that Szymborska was a very original love poet. The second release of the series Poetry belongs to everyone offers today a kind of uninterrupted discourse on the love of the Polish poet: it is a selection of her poems on the subject, edited by her late Italian translator, Pietro Marchesani, which together form an almost involuntary small treatise. You lack no kind, no form of love. The romantic one and the everyday one. The happy one and the one who thinks happy loves don’t exist. Waiting for Dino Campana, Montale, Alda Merini, all the great authors of the series, designed to rediscover the poetic word as something that concerns and challenges us, Szymborska reveals love to us in all its folds and faces. Because there are as many loves as there are beings and their inner worlds. Because we will never stop looking for each other, in the other: «We will look for a harmony,/ smiling, in the arms,/ even if we are different/ like two drops of water».
The series: 25 issues. each volume at 3.90 euros
Is titled The Book of Events
it is always half open the second volume of the series Poetry belongs to everyone, which from 21 March offers every Tuesday at a low price (3.90 euros plus the cost of the newspaper) 25 volumes edited by Daniele Piccini and dedicated to as many great authors. If the first issue offered a selection of texts by the Chilean Nobel Prize winner Pablo Neruda (1904-1973), on Tuesday 28 March it is the turn of the Polish poet Wisława Szymborska (1923-2012), whose centenary is being commemorated this year, in her time winner in 2006 of a Nobel. They will be followed by the Greek Costantino Cavafis (April 4), then our Alda Merini (April 11), Eugenio Montale, or another Nobel (April 18), Charles Baudelaire (April 25) and many others. These are anthologies that select compositions that are particularly significant for each author (the love lyrics, in the case of Szymborska) and each volume is accompanied by an introduction by Piccini – critic, signature familiar to the public of “la Lettura” and poet he himself — which illustrates the author’s figure and fortune. As for Szymborska, she studied Literature and Sociology in Kraków, the city where she would always live despite regular trips to the Netherlands. After the war he collaborated with the magazine “Walka”, adhering to the aesthetic canons of real socialism, from 1953 to 1981 he was part of the editorial staff of the magazine “Literary life”. and published his latest poetry collection, Two pointsNovember 2, 2005. In 1954 he received the City of Kraków Prize for Literature, in 1991 the Goethe Prize, in 1995 the Herder Prize and the degree to honor of the University of Poznan and in 1996 the Nobel Prize for Literature.
March 27, 2023 (change March 27, 2023 | 5:40 pm)
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