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Wislawa Szymborska, Wislawa Szymborska poetry, Secular or Eclectic, Secular or Eclectic poetry,  poetry, [TRADITION SUB2] poetry,  poetry by Wislawa Szymborska
(1923 - ) Timeline

English version by
Clare Cavanagh and Stanislaw Baranczak

Original Language
Polish

Secular or Eclectic
Contemporary

I prefer movies.
I prefer cats.
I prefer the oaks along the river.
I prefer Dickens to Dostoyevsky.
I prefer myself liking people
to myself loving mankind.
I prefer keeping a needle and thread on hand, just in case.
I prefer the color green.
I prefer not to maintain
that reason is to blame for everything.
I prefer exceptions.
I prefer to leave early.
I prefer talking to doctors about something else.
I prefer the old fine-lined illustrations.
I prefer the absurdity of writing poems
to the absurdity of not writing poems.
I prefer, where love's concerned, nonspecific anniversaries
that can be celebrated every day.
I prefer moralists
who promise me nothing.
I prefer cunning kindness to the over-trustful kind.
I prefer the earth in civvies.
I prefer conquered to conquering countries.
I prefer having some reservations.
I prefer the hell of chaos to the hell of order.
I prefer Grimms' fairy tales to the newspapers' front pages.
I prefer leaves without flowers to flowers without leaves.
I prefer dogs with uncropped tails.
I prefer light eyes, since mine are dark.
I prefer desk drawers.
I prefer many things that I haven't mentioned here
to many things I've also left unsaid.
I prefer zeroes on the loose
to those lined up behind a cipher.
I prefer the time of insects to the time of stars.
I prefer to knock on wood.
I prefer not to ask how much longer and when.
I prefer keeping in mind even the possibility
that existence has its own reason for being.

 

 

-- from Nothing Twice: Selected Poems, by Wislawa Szymborska / Stanislaw Baranczak

Amazon.com

 

Themes

  Garden
  Light
  Lotus
  Rose
  Spring Blossom


Recommended Books


Here, by Wislawa Szymborska / Translated by Clare Cavanagh
Miracle Fair: Selected Poems of Wislawa Szymborska, by Wislawa Szymborska / Translated by Joanna Trzeciak
Nothing Twice: Selected Poems, by Wislawa Szymborska / Stanislaw Baranczak
Poems New and Collected, by Wislawa Szymborska / Translated by Stanislaw Baranczak
Sounds, Feelings, Thoughts, by Wislawa Szymborska / Translated by Magnus J. Krynski

More >>

 

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Ivan M. Granger's original poetry, stories and commentaries are Copyright © 2002 - 2011 by Ivan M. Granger.
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