MIRACLE FAIR

A generous selection of poems, many of them previously untranslated, by the Nobel Prize–winning Polish poet, with an introduction by Czeslaw Milosz. The translator has arranged the selections thematically, each beginning with the image of a Szymborska woodcut and a quotation plucked from the poems. The themes are not explicitly stated, but easy to read off the poetry: History, Humanity, Epistemology, and others. Although many of these poems are lyrics, the speaker is vigorously cleansed of idiosyncrasy, of personal memory, and of any but the most abstracted physical debts (“the body is and is and is / and has no place to go,” ends “Torture”). At her most ambitious, Szymborska rattles the chains of consciousness itself: of a grain of sand, for example, she notes, “Our glance, our touch, do nothing for it. / It does not feel seen or touched. / Its falling onto the windowsill / Is only our adventure.” This is a wonderful observation, one perhaps only a philosophically minded poet could arrive at, but height has its disadvantages too, as when conclusions are too neatly clinched: “Every beginning, after all, / Is nothing but a sequel, / And the book of events / is always open in the middle.” In a winningly self-deprecating poem, Szymborska offers “My apologies to large questions for small answers.” It is rarely the size of Szymborska’s answers that seem at fault—they are more typically commensurate with the questions that provoked them—but the notion that, of all responses, an answer will usually do best. All this might only be the price of lucidity, and Szymborska’s poetry is among the most intelligent anywhere. Its playfulness and logic are nicely conveyed by the translator, who also provides helpful annotations and a brief biographical sketch.

A representative selection, well-rendered into English, of a lushly philosophical poet.