A "delectable and profound" collection of poems from Nobel PrizeтАУwinner Szymborska (Booklist).
When Here was published in Poland, reviewers marveled, тАЬHow is it that she keeps getting better?тАЭ
These twenty-seven poems, as rendered by prize-winning translators Clare Cavanagh and Stanislaw Baranczak, are among her greatest ever. Whether writing about her teenage self, microscopic creatures, or the upsides to living on Earth, she remains a virtuoso of form, line, and thought.
From the title poem:
I canтАЩt speak for elsewhere,
but here on Earth weтАЩve got a fair supply of everything.
Here we manufacture chairs and sorrows,
scissors, tenderness, transistors, violins, teacups, dams, and quips. . .
Like nowhere else, or almost nowhere,
youтАЩre given your own torso here,
equipped with the accessories required
for adding your own children to the rest.
Not to mention arms, legs, and astonished head.