Polish Poetry Unites is a video series for anyone interested in literature, history and reading. In each episode Edward Hirsch, a distinguished American poet, and the president of the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, will introduce a celebrated Polish poet to American audiences.
“Wisława Szymborska is a marvelous Polish poet, a major 20th century Polish poet.” - starts his introduction Edward Hirsch. “She belongs to the half generation after Miłosz, the generation of Herbert and Różewicz, which means that she lived through two totalitarianisms: the German occupation first, the Soviet occupation second and I think that this gave her a kind of allergy to collectivist thinking.“
She refuses all collectivist ideas. She speaks only of the individual, the “I.” She doesn’t speak for the “we.” And she is also very aware of the limitations of the sensibility of the individual… Throughout her work, which is extremely witty, there is a great awareness of cruelty and evil… There was a sense that the world was coming to an end, and yet the world did not come to an end, somehow after every catastrophe, the world still manages to survive.
Hirsch says “I knew her a little. I interviewed her after she won the Nobel Prize, for the New York Times Magazine. But I knew her well enough to say that she would love this high school girl in the film about Vermeer, who is going blind and loves Szymborska’s poem “Vermeer” and Vermeer himself.“
Moderator: Edward Hirsch
Writer and Director: Ewa Zadrzyńska
Cinematography: Jacek Mierosławski
Editor: Anna Jędrzejewska
Curator and Executive Producer: Bartek Remisko
Learn more: instytutpolski...
4 окт 2024
