{"id":5974,"date":"2018-01-12T09:57:05","date_gmt":"2018-01-12T16:57:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/?p=5974"},"modified":"2018-01-12T09:57:05","modified_gmt":"2018-01-12T16:57:05","slug":"wislawa-szymborska-a-contribution-to-statistics-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/2018\/01\/12\/wislawa-szymborska-a-contribution-to-statistics-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Wislawa Szymborska – A Contribution to Statistics"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Contribution to Statistics
\nby Wislawa Szymborska<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

English version by Clare Cavanagh and Stanislaw Baranczak<\/font><\/p>\n

Out of a hundred people<\/p>\n

those who always know better
\n\u2014 fifty-two<\/p>\n

doubting every step
\n\u2014 nearly all the rest,<\/p>\n

glad to lend a hand
\nif it doesn\u2019t take too long
\n\u2014 as high as forty-nine,<\/p>\n

always good
\nbecause they can\u2019t be otherwise
\n\u2014 four, well maybe five,<\/p>\n

able to admire without envy
\n\u2014 eighteen,<\/p>\n

suffering illusions
\ninduced by fleeting youth
\n\u2014 sixty, give or take a few,<\/p>\n

not to be taken lightly
\n\u2014 forty and four,<\/p>\n

living in constant fear
\nof someone or something
\n\u2014 seventy-seven,<\/p>\n

capable of happiness
\n\u2014 twenty-something tops,<\/p>\n

harmless singly, savage in crowds
\n\u2014 half at least,<\/p>\n

cruel
\nwhen forced by circumstances
\n\u2014 better not to know
\neven ballpark figures,<\/p>\n

wise after the fact
\n\u2014 just a couple more
\nthan wise before it,<\/p>\n

taking only things from life
\n\u2014 thirty
\n(I wish I were wrong),<\/p>\n

hunched in pain,
\nno flashlight in the dark
\n\u2014 eighty-three
\nsooner or later,<\/p>\n

righteous
\n\u2014 thirty-five, which is a lot,<\/p>\n

righteous
\nand understanding
\n\u2014 three,<\/p>\n

worthy of compassion
\n\u2014 ninety-nine,<\/p>\n

mortal
\n\u2014 a hundred out of a hundred.
\nThus far this figure still remains unchanged.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a> \u2014 from Poems New and Collected<\/a>, by Wislawa Szymborska \/ Translated by Stanislaw Baranczak<\/font><\/p>\n


\/ Image by Andy Maguire<\/a> \/<\/em><\/font><\/p>\n

I always knew statistics had a poetic heart. After such terrible abuse by advertisers and politicians, statistics will redeem themselves in great and painful art.<\/p>\n

worthy of compassion
\n\u2014 ninety-nine,<\/p>\n

mortal
\n\u2014 a hundred out of a hundred.
\nThus far this figure still remains unchanged.<\/i><\/p>\n

Of course, even the best-natured of statistics exist to taunt us, to challenge us. Then again, that\u2019s what those irascible poets do too\u2026<\/p>\n


\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/a>Recommended Books: Wislawa Szymborska<\/font><\/b><\/p>\n\n

<\/p>\n

\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Poems New and Collected<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nMiracle Fair: Selected Poems of Wislawa Szymborska<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nView with a Grain of Sand: Selected Poems<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nNothing Twice: Selected Poems<\/a><\/small><\/td>\nDancing with Joy: 99 Poems<\/a><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
More Books >><\/a><\/i><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

<\/center>
\n<\/p>\n\n\n
\n\"Wislawa<\/a>\n<\/td>\n\nWislawa Szymborska<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Poland (1923 \u2013 2012) Timeline<\/a>
\nSecular or Eclectic<\/a><\/a>
\n<\/a><\/a><\/em>\n<\/td>\n

<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

<\/p>\n

Wislawa Szymborska (pronounced vis\u2019wava sim\u2019borska<\/i>) was born in Prowent, Poland in 1923. When she was still a child, in the early 1930\u2019s, her family moved to Krakow. <\/p>\n

When World War II broke out, Wislawa Szymborska was still a student, and had to continue her education in secret. Toward the end of the war she found work with the railroads, protecting her from being deported to the forced labor camps in Germany. She also found occasional work as an illustrator.<\/p>\n

With the end of the war, she began her university studies, focusing on language, literature, and sociology. It was then that she connected with the Polish writing scene and published her first poems.<\/p>\n

Because of difficult finances, she eventually had to drop out of school. She married in 1948 (and later divorced, in 1954). During this time she worked as a secretary and illustrator for a magazine. <\/p>\n

With the rise of Soviet influence over Poland in the post-war era, Wislawa Szymborska, like many artists and intellectuals, initially embraced or, at least, accepted the new Soviet-style society. But she gradually distanced herself from official ideology which increasingly showed itself to be foreign-dominated bureaucratic totalitarianism and not supportive of the people. By the 1980s she was contributing material for underground samizdat publications in opposition to official ideology.<\/p>\n

She spent much of her career as a columnist for a Polish literary review magazine, and many of her essays have been gathered together and published in book form.<\/p>\n

In 1996 Wislawa Szymborska was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.<\/p>\n

Although her poetry is loved throughout the world, she has published fewer than 250 poems.<\/p>\n

More poetry by Wislawa Szymborska<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Contribution to Statistics by Wislawa Szymborska English version by Clare Cavanagh and Stanislaw Baranczak Out of a hundred people those who always know better \u2014 fifty-two doubting every step \u2014 nearly all the rest, glad to lend a hand if it doesn\u2019t take too long \u2014 as high as forty-nine, always good because they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2133,1079,971],"class_list":["post-5974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","tag-numbers","tag-statistics","tag-wislawa-szymborska"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5974"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5975,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5974\/revisions\/5975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.poetry-chaikhana.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}