Monologue of a Dog

by Wislawa Szymborska, Clare Cavanagh, Stanislaw Baranczak, Billy Collins

From a writer whom Charles Simic calls "one of the finest poets living" comes a collection of witty, compassionate, contemplative, and always surprising poems.

  • Format: eBook
  • ISBN-13/ EAN: 9780547542249
  • ISBN-10: 0547542240
  • Pages: 112
  • Publication Date: 02/24/2015
About the Book
About the Authors
Excerpts
Reviews
  • About the Book

    From a writer whom Charles Simic calls "one of the finest poets living" comes a collection of witty, compassionate, contemplative, and always surprising poems. Szymborska writes with verve about everything from love unremembered to keys mislaid in the grass. The poems will appear, for the first time, side by side with the Polish originals, in a book to delight new and old readers alike.

    EVERYTHING
    Everything-
    a bumptious, stuck-up word.
    It should be written in quotes.
    It pretends to miss nothing,
    to gather, hold, contain, and have.
    While all the while it's just
    a shred of a gale.

  • About the Author

    Wislawa Szymborska

    WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA (1923–2012) was born in Poland and worked as a poetry editor, translator, and columnist. She was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1996. Her books include Monologue of a Dog, Map: Collected and Last Poems, and Poems New and Collected: 1957–1997.

    Clare Cavanagh

    CLARE CAVANAGH, professor of Slavic and comparative literature at Northwestern, has received a PEN Translation Award for her work, with Stanislaw Baranczak, on Szymborska's poetry. 

    Stanislaw Baranczak

    STANSILAW BARANCZAK, born in Poland in 1946, was a poet, literary critic, scholar, editor, translator and lecturer. He received numerous honors and awards, including a Guggenheim Felllowship, and translated many seminal works—including the work of William Shakespeare, E.E. Cummings, and Emily Dickinson—from English into Polish.

    Billy Collins

  • Excerpts

    Monologue of a Dog Ensnared

    in History

    There are dogs and dogs. I was among the chosen.

    I had good papers and wolf's blood in my veins.

    I lived upon the heights inhaling the odors of views:

    meadows in sunlight, spruces after rain,

    and clumps of earth beneath the snow.

    I had a decent home and people on call,

    I was fed, washed, groomed,

    and taken for lovely strolls.

    Respectfully, though, and comme il faut.

    They all knew full well whose dog I was.

    Any lousy mutt can have a master.

    Take care, though-beware comparisons.

    My master was a breed apart.

    He had a splendid herd that trailed his every step

    and fixed its eyes on him in fearful awe.

    Monolog psa zaplatanego

    w dzieje

    Sa psy i psy. Ja bylem psem wybranym.

    Mialem dobre papiery i w zylach krew wilcza.

    Mieszkalem na wyzynie wdychajac wonie widoków

    na laki w sloncu, na swierki po deszczu

    i grudy ziemi spod sniegu.

    Mialem porzadny dom i ludzi na uslugi

    bylem zywiony, myty, szczotkowany,

    wyprowadzany na piekne spacery.

    Jednak z szacunkiem, bez poufalosci.

    Kazdy dobrze pamietal, czyim jestem psem.

    Byle parszywy kundel potrafi miec pana.

    Ale uwaga-wara od porównan.

    Mój pan byl panem jedynym w swoim rodzaju.

    Mial okazale stado chodzace za nim krok w krok

    i zapatrzone w niego z lekliwym podziwem.

    Copyright © by Wislawa Szymborska, 2002

    Translation copyright © 2006 by Harcourt, Inc.

    Foreword © 2006 by Billy Collins

    All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced

    or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,

    including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval

    system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

    Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the work should be

    mailed to the following address: Permissions Department, Harcourt, Inc.,

    6277 Sea Harbor Drive, Orlando, Florida 32887-6777.

  • Reviews

    PRAISE FOR WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA

    "Szymborska is unquestionably one of the great living European poets. She's deeply human and a joy to read . . . [A] poet to live with."--Robert Hass, The Washington Post Book World

    "She captures the nightmarish contingency of human survival, and the human callousness toward nature, with an ironic elegance miraculously free of bitterness."--The New Yorker

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