The Poetry of Wislawa Szymborska

“If you want the world in a nutshell,” a Polish critic remarked, “try Szymborska.”

Nobel Prize winner Wisława Szymborska draws us in with her unexpected, unassuming humour. In Szymborska’s view of the world, writes Richard Lourie in The New York Times, astonishment is not some precious poetic stance, but the only sane and natural response to the onrush of life that is forever various and new. It leaves no time to rehearse; every night is opening night.
Edited by the award-winning translator, Clare Cavanagh, Map: Collected and Last Poems traces Szymborska’s work until she died in 2012. According to translators Magnus Krynski and Robert Maguire, “Szymborka’s poetry is marked by high seriousness, delightful inventiveness, a prodigal imagination, and enormous technical skill …She looks on with wonder, astonishment and amusement, but almost never with despair.”
From ‘The trampling of eternity with the tip of a golden slipper’ to ‘A Sorrowful Buddha, a sorrowful Jesus’ to many a lexicon of ironic chutzpah, these poems take the audience on a rather wondrous journey.

Dr. Omkar Bhatkar, the Artistic Director of Metamorphosis Theatre and Films, has been exploring poetry as performance and has been able to create an aesthetic sensibility beyond genres at the crossroads of theatre, dance, film and poetry. His present exploration of the poetry of Wistawa Szymborska brings together her last poems before her death in a spectacular setting using visuals, movement and music.

Performed on May 9, 2024. 6:30 PM at Godrej Dance Theatre, NCPA

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