Polish Nobel Laureate Wislawa Szymborksa is one of my favorite poets, perhaps my favorite living poet. She's certainly the one I'd most like to have tea with, if cover photos are anything to go by.
If you've never read Szymborksa before, the 27 poems in this short volume are a wonderful introduction to her work, and if you've been following her poetry for years, Here is like a long awaited conversation with an old friend who's been living far, far away.
This collection showcases the roaming curiosity of Szymborksa's poetic eye (she writes about everything from metaphysics and memory to assassins, accidents, and the art of poetry itself), her ability to create language which is simultaneously intricate and direct, and the modesty, wisdom and humor which made me love her poetry in the first place. These are poems which open outward even as they zero in, poems of such simplicity and depth that they'll move you on the first reading and stay with you for years to come.
