Wisława Szymborska: Poetry and Politics

Recipient of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1996, the Polish poet Wisława Szymborska quickly claimed a slot on the one shelf I reserve for my special books. I keep View with a Grain of Sand: Selected Poems (published with Harcourt Brace) right between the selected volumes of Akhmatova and Cavafy. Here you will also find Baudelaire, Célan, Tagore, García Lorca, Vallejo and Neruda. With the exception of these last three (I read them in the original Spanish, my native tongue), I read the rest in translation.

Translated by Stanisław Barańczak and Clare Cavanagh (there are more translations available since she received the Nobel), Szymborska appealed to me immediately because of the simplicity of the language expressing such complexity of context, because of the deadpan delivery, ironic and unsettling, of her charged subject matter.
Two poems that make me shudder every time are “Hitler’s First Photograph” and “The Terrorist, He’s Watching.” In the first poem, a bubbly baby Adolf poses restlessly upon his mother’s knee: “No one hears howling dogs, or fate’s footsteps./ A history teacher loosens his collar/ and yawns over homework.”
In the second poem, the point of view is that of a man who has just planted a bomb in a bar across the street, and he squats safely in the distance, counting down to the moment of detonation. All the while he amuses himself with the fortune of those who exit the bar and the ill-luck of those who enter it:
This waiting, it’s taking forever.
Any second now.
No, not yet.
Yes, now.
The bomb, it explodes.
Szymborska’s Nobel lecture is full of gems, words of wisdom and curiosity that explore the theme of “The Poet and the World.” I was particularly struck by the following paragraph:
“In more fortunate countries, where human dignity isn't assaulted so readily, poets yearn, of course, to be published, read, and understood, but they do little, if anything, to set themselves above the common herd and the daily grind. And yet it wasn't so long ago, in this century's first decades, that poets strove to shock us with their extravagant dress and eccentric behavior. But all this was merely for the sake of public display. The moment always came when poets had to close the doors behind them, strip off their mantles, fripperies, and other poetic paraphernalia, and confront—silently, patiently awaiting their own selves—the still white sheet of paper. For this is finally what really counts.”
The critique here is directed to the issue of poetry as privilege, of creativity in countries (like this one) where one’s political leanings are suspect, where poets tout their liberal beliefs and yet their poetry is conservative—because poetry is not the place for politics. That doesn’t seem to be the case for visual artists or other genres of artistic expression (even for fiction writers, I would argue), but it certainly is the case in poetry, where the vocal, dominant group is quick to assail any poet with convictions as a citizen of the world.
Szymborska declares in the end that facing “the still white sheet of paper” is “finally what really counts.” And I agree—in the end the work has to stand on its poetic merits, on its integrity as a work of art, regardless of the context of its creation. But this issue becomes complicated when “good art” or a “good poem” is measured only at the convenience of stripping away its social intent or political power. It’s as if it has to be made safe before it can be approached for evaluation.
Lest I misrepresent Szymborska’s range, I’d like to present the opening stanza to the poem “Poetry Reading,” which illustrates humorously another matter: the plight of the artist who, despite the beauty or relevance of his/her art, fails to draw an audience. Or is this poem about the failure of poetry?:
To be a boxer, or not to be here
at all. O Muse, where are our teeming crowds?
Twelve people in the room, eight seats to spare—
it’s time to start this cultural affair.
Half came inside because it started raining,
the rest are relatives. O Muse.