The Joy of Writing
by Wislawa Szymborska
A wonderful poet died today. I urge you to take a moment to read some of her stuff available on the web. Evidently, she has only one Kindle book but you can urge Amazon to urge the publishers to convert more of them. Her poem "The Joy of Writing" gets moves me but much of her poetry is memorable and lovely. The Nobel committee awarding her the 1996 prize in poetry called her the "Mozart of poetry". Like him, she created work that touches people of all ages or conditions.
Wislawa Szymborska was a Nobel laureate in poetry. She died today at age 88.
It is sometimes said that if you can read, you should thank the teachers who gave you that gift. Szymborska shows us that if we can think and imagine and write, we should thank our teachers and ancestors for the tools that enable us to perform that magic. She is also a case for saluting the world's increasingly important translators, who are a kind of poet too.
In honor of poetry and its clear observation of our lives and ways, in honor of attention to words and their flavors, I thought I would mention of pair of arresting phrases that I came across today. The first is from The Atlantic Wire, a free e-newsletter from the Atlantic magazine, quoting Michael Wolff in The Guardian. Discussing the rocky road ahead for Facebook as it faces new challenges, Wolff mentions "issue-hungry politicians". His language went right into my brain: of course! It doesn't matter what the issue is, so long as it is an issue, a politician can take a stand and show firmness or support or outrage or something else colorful, notable and hopefully, memorable
The 2nd comes from Wray Herbert's discussion in "On Second Thought" of needless complexity that we can get ourselves all balled up in. He describes a quite complex series of interconnected machines Rube Goldberg designed to create a "self-operating napkin". Wouldn't that be great? Just think if you didn't have to open a napkin and place on your lap! So much better! Life would be so much more beautiful!
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
Main web site: Kirbyvariety
