I generally love Szymborska's poems and looked forward to enjoying this volume. Overall, for me, it was a disappointment and not up to the level of other works by this Nobel Prize winner.
I was impressed with this collection's next to last entry, "Labyrinth" and with various less impressive entries along the way. As a whole, however, I just could not relate to many of the entries.
"Labyrinth" however, did catch me and inspire multiple readings. The poem is perhaps a bit summed up in its lines, "You may choose/where to be or not to be,/to overpass or to pull over,/ only not to overlook."
These lines reflect the "live life to the fullest" theme found so often in hers and others' works. It is advice given by people who have lived a more than a few years, but all too frequently, neither fully understood nor applied by others. ( )

Here, the words spill their syllables and letters, arrange, as life continues to transform and evolve itself through entwined beauty and grime of experiences and emotions.

** 'Life on Earth is quite a bargain.
Dreams, for one, don't change admission.
Illusions are costly only when lost.
The body has its own installment plan.'
— from HERE

** 'Billions of faces on the earth's surface.
My face, yours, whose —
you'll never know.
Maybe Nature has to shortchange us,
and to keep up, meet demand,
she fishes up what's been sunk
in the mirror of oblivion.'
— from THOUGHTS THAT VISIT ME ON BUSY STREETS

Here, there is overt wonder and amazement of life's miracle and power, mundanity and imperceptibility; the anguish and denial of its end, of death; familiar in-betweens of past identities and selves, estrangements and engagements.

** 'Relatives and friends still link us, it is true,
but in her world nearly all are living,
while in mine almost no one survives
from that shared circle.'
— from TEENAGER

Here is a portrait of being alive and being human. Human. A spiritual pilgrimage which coalesces itself with the colour and pallor of time and space. The constant change of the everyday, the cost of these changes, the fantasy of being another.

** 'And as a bonus, despite our own freedom,
the choices of our heart, our tastes,
we're swept away
by amorous yearnings for —
and the alarm clock rings.'
— from DREAMS

** 'We live longer
but less precisely
and in shorter sentences.'
— from NONREADING

Szymborska's poems speak of the dole and toll of existence, of being, of presence and absence. Most particularly the profound and resonant HARD LIFE WITH MEMORY and the afflicting IDENTIFICATION. Here is an affecting and brilliant poetry collection. Read Here.

** 'For the kids the first ending of the world.
For the cat a new master.
For the dog a new mistress.
For the furniture stairs, thuds, my way or the highway.
For the walls bright squares where pictures once hung.
For the neighbors new subjects, a break in the boredom.
For the car better if there were two.
For the novels, the poems — fine, take what you want.
Worse with encyclopedias and VCRs,
not to mention the guide to proper usage,
which doubtless holds pointers on two names —
are the still linked with the conjunction "and"
or does a period divide them.'
— DIVORCE ( )

My favorites are:
- The end and the beginning
- Under one small star
- The silence of the plants ( )

Szymborska writes with such lightness and playfulness, imbuing everyday objects or events with a sense of intelligence and humanity, creatively bending time and space, and pointing out our transience here on this orb in a gentle, accepting way.

I enjoyed each of the 27 poems in this collection, each of which tickled me in some way, but I’ll mention my favorites, and give a sense for what they’re about:

Here – Szymborska points out that life is actually pretty good (“Like nowhere else, or almost nowhere, / you’re given your own torso here, / equipped with the accessories required / for adding your own children to the rest.” …. “And I know what you’re thinking next. Wars, wars, wars. But there are pauses in between them too. Attention! - people are evil. At ease – people are good.”)

Thoughts That Visit Me On Busy Streets – perhaps Nature recycles faces over the billions of people who have been here throughout the ages, so that “Those passerby might be Archimedes in jeans, / Catherine the Great draped in resale, / some pharaoh with briefcase and glasses.”

In a Mail Coach – She daydreams about journeying back in time to see Romantic Poet Juliusz Słowacki, but unable to talk to him, sees him leave a crowded coach he was sharing, and trundle off alone instead.

Vermeer – “So long as that woman from the Rijksmuseum / in painted quiet and concentration / keeps pouring milk day after day / from the pitcher to the bowl / the World hasn’t earned / the world’s end” – indeed, Art and humanity’s highest achievements makes us feel this way, and Szymborksa puts her finger right on it.

Absence – she describes ‘not being’, or not being the same girl, if one’s mother or father had married someone else instead. It’s a common enough thought, but in simple brushstrokes, she points out just how much a fragile chance our lives are.

Great poet, so wise, and so accessible. Recommended. ( )

eh. not her best. ( )