Cover of Here

Here

An exciting collection of poems by Wislawa Szymborska. When Herewas published in Poland, reviewers marveled, "How is it that she keeps getting better?" 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.

Read more

From the title poem:

I can't speak for elsewhere,

but here on Earth we've 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,

you're 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.

Audience
adult
Length
short · 96 pages

Click a tag to see books like this one that share it. Point at it (on a phone, tap it) for less of it instead.

Read it? Sign in to help tag it.

Liked Here? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked Here. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. Without End: New and Selected Poems Shares poetry, polish, Poland
  2. New and Collected Poems: 1931-2001 Shares poetry, polish, nobel
  3. The Great Enigma: New Collected Poems Shares poetry, nobel, nobel prize
  4. Road-side Dog Shares poetry, polish, nobel prize

“People who read Here tend to reach for these next.”

  1. The Collected Poems, 1956-1998
  2. Wheel with a Single Spoke: and other poems
  3. Master of Disguises
  4. Behind My Eyes [With CD]

“If you want more of the same, start with these.”

  1. Selected Poems
  2. Elegy for the Departure and Other Poems
  3. Unattainable Earth
  4. Collected Poems

“If it was the poetry that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. Talking to My Body
  2. Selected Poems: 1931-2004
  3. The Deleted World
  4. Eternal Enemies: Poems

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. High Windows
  2. The Great Frog Race and Other Poems
  3. Unscrambled Eggs
  4. Lord Weary's Castle: The Mills of the Kavanaughs