a question answering a question

the following is the revised version of an essay that i wrote about poet wislawa szymborska, a writer featured in the against forgetting anthology.


A Question Answering a Question

Art, with poetry in particular, has been used throughout history to serve as a memorable, accessible witness to history’s claim on the lives of humankind. The 20th century was radically marked by a number of tragedies; poets of every milieu have taken it upon themselves to generate not only a greater awareness and understanding of these events, but a careful assessment of the ways in which a person absorbs its impact. An illustration of this sort of poet is Polish writer Wislawa Szymborska. Early in life she was encouraged by her father to write often, thus out of habit put a pen to paper during the German occupation of her homeland as the 1940s began and World War II gained momentum. As the decades went on and her country was entrenched in socialist regimes, Szymborska published volume after volume of poetry and became one of the best-known poets in Poland (Encyclopedia of World Biography). Her writing is marked by a sharp wit, an impassive, observational tone, and a wavering between the certain and the conceptual in order to broaden the meaning of her work. She is an ideal example of a poet who has not only been shaped by the conflict of her surroundings but who has returned the favor by transforming the way in which people respond to it.

Born in 1923, Wislawa Szymborska witnessed the German and Soviet occupation of her country at the age of 16, observing the establishment a socialist regime that was not overcome until 1990 (Background Notes: Republic of Poland). Under the power of socialism, Polish society was characterized by civil war, forced collectivization, economic privation, and Stalinist terror (Norgaard, Ole, and Sampson 773). Separated from the rest of the developing world by the proverbial “Iron Curtain,” the writing of artists living in the Eastern Bloc was soon characterized by a calculated and personally detached tone. Some committed their work to confronting the Soviet occupation; Szymborska, however, did not. In fact, this is one of her defining characteristics as a writer who has come out of a history of oppression and rebellion: she does not consider herself to be a “political poet” (Contemporary Women Poets). A pacifist, she does not believe in fighting fire with fire, and instead commits to mastering the skill of simultaneous narration and reflection. In her 1993 poem, “No Title Required,” she both reflects upon a morning spent sitting under a tree and describes it in real time. This dual contemplation blossoms into a much broader, introspective dialogue with statements such as, “And yet I’m sitting by this river, that’s a fact. / And since I’m here, / I must have come from somewhere, / and before that / I must have turned up in many other places, / exactly like the conquerors of nations / before setting sail” (Szymborska 175). Even from behind the Iron Curtain, she is able to ask noteworthy questions of the world though her delicate unique personal style of simplicity and straightforwardness without being chained to the obligations of being a purely political poet.

Wislawa Szymborska’s “No Title Required,” exemplifies her fondness for tongue-in-cheek statements, which she oftentimes employs to take swings at governmental principles and leaders. Her use of irony allows for the reader to come to more than one conclusion while reading or interpreting a poem (Carpenter). For example, in the poem “Utopia,” she describes an island that is built upon perfect reasonability and shrewdness. Said island is – unsurprisingly – uninhabited; she says, “The tree of Understanding, dazzlingly straight and simple, / sprouts by the spring called Now I Get It” (Szymborska 127). While this poem can be read as insinuating the author’s dislike for Poland’s state of totalitarianism, it can just as easily be perceived in terms of a more universal theme. In fact, the third line of the poem states, “The only roads are those that offer access,” and later, “The thicker the woods, the vaster the vista: / the Valley of Obviously” (Szymborska 127). In a broader context, this could be interpreted not only as Szymborska’s dislike for socialism but for easy answers and sightless assumptions. She tends to favor conclusions that commit only to doubt. “I am, she says, ‘a question answering a question’ (Carpenter).

This dedication to question-asking in “Utopia” is similarly prevalent in other works by Wislawa Szymborska and displays her consistent wavering between a state of certainty and uncertainty. “Whatever inspiration is, it’s born from a continuous ‘I don’t know,’” she says (Encyclopedia of World Biography). In a way, this implies that she is generally a very unassuming person and, ultimately, is modest about her own capacities as a question-answerer. This predicament is brought to light in the poem “Hunger Camp at Jaslo,” a depiction of the way a writer might respond to lives lost amidst conflict. It starts out a by asking how many had died of hunger; Szymborska’s response is, “Write: I don’t know” (Forche 459). She does not claim to have the answers to difficult questions about why lives are lost (much less why their being lost is so overlooked). Furthermore, this poem displays her general affinity for humankind and habit of taking its side over the side of history. As she says in the first stanza: “History counts its skeletons in round numbers. / A thousand and one remains a thousand” (Forche 459). As far as she is concerned, history is a rather heartless force, disrespecting the intrinsic value of human life by failing to recognize its victims (Carpenter).

In order to level reality and compel the reader see these massive issues on a scale that makes sense, Wislawa Szymborska strategically strays from abstract thinking and instead describes what is immediate, what is concrete, what is commonplace. In “Hunger Camp at Jaslo,” for example, she compares human lives to blades of grass in a field. However, this simplification does not necessarily make her queries any easier to confront. Szymborska’s poetry is not meant to make the reader comfortable. In fact, the 1957 poem “Brueghel’s Two Monkeys,” takes a tone that is based entirely on unease. It deals with the ominous sense that hangs over a student being tested on a subject that they did not study for; on a less petty scale, it observes the anxiety that one experiences as being an active part of mankind’s history, which Szymborska believes has significantly added to human affliction through wars and repression (Carpenter).

A poem that very clearly and accurately encompasses Szymborska’s influences, intentions and diction as a writer is “Photograph from September 11.” She speaks ironically by describing the delicateness of a person in “flight” when the reality is that they have been tossed from a skyscraper. The poem concludes by saying “I can do only two things for them - / describe this flight / and not add a last line” (Szymborska 69), furthering her ambition to embrace the uncertain. Again, her focus is on the victims – on the small, the personal, the familiar. Like the small items that fell from pockets or the hair that fell loose in the wind.

The 20th century, defined largely by the tragedies that occurred during its time, left marks not only on nations but on the people within their borders. In many ways, artists have made it their plight to bring light to these events and the lasting effect that they have on future generations. The greatest of these artists, however, are able to take a globally recognized calamity and not only build awareness but dissect them in such a way that the common person is able to sit down and have a one-on-one experience with its implications. Wislawa Szymborska, whose native country of Poland has only recently pulled itself out of communist oppression, has stood in the face of injustice since her first works were published over 50 years ago. What makes her distinctive, though, is her refusal to commit to any one side of an argument unless it is the argument of humanity as a whole. Her sharp tongue, observational manner of speaking and affinity for both the ambiguous and the familiar mark her poetry as that which remains vital in a variety of political, cultural, and personal climates.


works cited

Carpenter, Bogdana. "Wislawa Szymborska and the importance of the unimportant." World Literature Today 71.1 (1997): 8+. Gale Biography In Context. Web. 8 Mar. 2011.

Forché, Carolyn. "Repression in Eastern and Central Europe." Against Forgetting: Twentieth-century Poetry of Witness. New York: W.W. Norton, 1993. 455-60. Print.

"HISTORY." Background Notes on Countries of the World: Republic of Poland (2007): 2-5. Military & Government Collection. EBSCO. Web. 18 Mar. 2011.
Norgaard, Ole, and Steven L. Sampson. "POLAND'S CRISIS AND EAST EUROPEAN
SOCIALISM." Theory & Society 13.6 (1984): 773. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 9 Mar. 2011.

"Poland." Encyclopedia of Intelligence & Counterintelligence. Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 2005. Credo Reference. 8 Sept. 2009. Web. 10 Mar. 2011.

"Solidarity." The Columbia Encyclopedia. New York: Columbia UP, 2008. Credo Reference. 7 Nov. 2008. Web. 11 Mar. 2011.

"Szymborska, Wislawa (1923-)." Encyclopedia of World Biography. Detroit: Gale, 1998. Gale Biography In Context. Web. 8 Mar. 2011.

Szymborska, Wislawa. "Photograph from September 11." Monologue of a Dog. New York: Harcourt, 2002. 69. Print.

Szymborska, Wislawa. View with a Grain of Sand Selected Poems. San Diego: Harcourt Brace, 1993. Print.

"Warsaw Uprising." The Crystal Reference Encyclopedia. West Chiltington: Crystal Semantics, 2005. Credo Reference. 29 Mar. 2006. Web. 10 Mar. 2011.

"Wislawa Szymborska." Contemporary Women Poets. Gale, 1998. Gale Biography In Context. Web. 9 Mar. 2011.