Wisława Szymborska

Wisława Szymborska married poet Adam Włodek in 1948. Their little house at 22 Krupnicza Street in Kraków became a hub for the writers. However, the couple split up in 1954; but remained close friends till death. They did not have any children.

She died peacefully in her sleep on February 1, 2012 at her home in Kraków. She was then 88 years old and was working on a new poem.

Today Szymborska’s poems have been included in school syllabus. Now she is also an internationaly known poet and her work has been translated into different European languages like English, French and German as well as into Asian languages like Arabic, Hebrew, Japanese and Chinese.

Wisława Szymborska was born on July 2, 1923 in Prowent, now a part of Kórnik town in western Poland. She was the second child of her parents, Wincenty Szymborska, and Anna (née Rottermund) Szymborski.

At the time of her birth, her mother was working as a steward under Count Władysław Zamoyski, who owned a large property including the town of Kórnik. When the count died in 1924, the family moved to Torun. Wislawa started writing poetry at the age of five while studying in an elementary school in Torun.

Environment at her home was quite intellectual; everybody read a lot and discussed about books. Wisława always showed her poems to her father and if he liked what she wrote he gave her coin as a reward.

For some reason, the family again made a move and in 1931, settled at Kraków, one of the oldest cities in Poland. Wisława was enrolled at a convent school in Kraków, but could not finish her studies there.

As the Second World War set in, Germany occupied Poland and in 1940, the Polish citizens were barred from attending public schools. Wisława continued her studies in an underground school. Her father had died by that time.

Wisława Szymborska began her literary career while studying at the Jagiellonian University. In March 1945, she made her debut in a Kraków newspaper called Dziennik Polski with her poem ‘Szukam słowa’ (I Seek the Word). Soon, many other poems began to appear in different local news papers and periodicals.

After leaving her studies in 1948, she took up the job of the secretary in a bi-weekly educational magazine. At the same time, she also worked as the illustrator for the magazine and continued to write poetry.

In 1949, she completed her first collection of poems. Unfortunately, the book did not pass censorship as the poems did not reflect the communist ideology of postwar Poland. Therefore, she began to work in that line.

Like most intellectuals of that era, young Szymborska’s early works reflected socialist philosophy followed by Poland at that time. Her debut collection ‘Dlatego żyjemy’ (That is what we are living for), published in 1952, contains many poems that echoed her political belief.

In 1953, she joined a weekly magazine called Życie Literackie (Literary Life) as an editorial staff. Some time now, she also became a member of Polish United Workers’ Party. Her next collection, ‘Pytania zadawane sobie’ (Questions Put to Myself), published in 1954, echoed the same socialist sentiment.

Among Szymborska’s collections, ‘Sól’ (1962; Salt), ‘Sto pociech’ (1967; No End of Fun), and ‘Wszelki wypadek’ (1972; Could Have) are most noteworthy. The poems in these three collections are especially remarkable for their language and precision. At the same time they all posses a sense of ironic detachment.

’Dwukropek’ (Colon), published in 2005, is another of her major works. It was selected as the best book of 2006 by readers of Gazeta Wyborcza, a popular newspaper published from Warsaw.