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Wislawa Szymborska
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Miracle Fair: Selected Poems of Wislawa Szymborska (Selected Poems of Wislawa Szymborksa) Paperback – November 17, 2002

by Wislawa Szymborska (Author), Joanna Trzeciak (Translator), Czeslaw Milosz (Introduction)
4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 29 ratings
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"Miracle Fair is Szymborska at her very best."―Harvard Book Review

Winner of the Heldt Prize for Translation. A new translation of the Nobel Prize-winning Polish poet, with an introduction by Czeslaw Milosz. This long-awaited volume samples the full range of Wislawa Szymborska's major themes: the ironies of love, the wonders of nature's beauty, and the illusory character of art. Szymborska's voice emerges as that of a gentle subversive, self-deprecating in its wit, yet graced with a gift for coaxing the extraordinary out of the ordinary.
Previous page
  1. Print length
    172 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    W. W. Norton & Company
  4. Publication date
    November 17, 2002
  5. Dimensions
    5.5 x 0.5 x 8.3 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0393323854
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0393323856
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

Miracle Fair is Szymborska at her very best. -- Harvard Book Review

What Szymborska calls 'the joy of writing' also becomes, in this book, the joy of reading. -- Edward Hirsch

About the Author

Wislawa Szymborska was born in Western Poland in 1923. Her poems have been translated (and published in book form) in many international languages. She is the Goethe Prize winner (1991) and Herder Prize winner (1995). She has a degree of Honorary Doctor of Letters of Poznan University (1995). In 1996 she received the Polish PEN Club prize, and is the1996 Nobel Laureate in Literature.

Joanna Trzeciak's translations include Miracle Fair: Selected Poems of Wislawa Szymborska, winner of the Heldt Translation Prize. She lives in Cleveland, Ohio.

Czeslaw Milosz won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1980.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company; New edition (November 17, 2002)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 172 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0393323854
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0393323856
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.5 x 8.3 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars 29 ratings

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Wislawa Szymborska

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Customer reviews

4.7 out of 5 stars
4.7 out of 5
29 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

scott89119
5.0 out of 5 stars Heart of the swallow/have mercy on them
Reviewed in the United States on September 15, 2006
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What beautiful little worlds Wislawa Szymborska creates. Miracle Fair is an upstanding collection of her trademark intelligence, and simple yet very deep understanding of the mundane in nature and life's ironies. Her poems typically begin with the smallest of circumstances, and the reader follows it, assured of the simplicity of the theme, and then at the end comes the zinger which, with a line or two, transforms it into a much more complex creation. Which is not to say that her work is inaccessible; Szymborska is one of the most thoroughly enjoyable poets I have ever come across. This collection is a treat for lovers of natural poetry, and is filled on every page with graceful insights to the human condition.
5 people found this helpful
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Tom
5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful Poetry
Reviewed in the United States on October 2, 2013
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She was a virtuoso with words, creating moments of wonder often laced with subtile humor. I have no knowledge of Polish, but reading these translations makes me wonder how wonderful her poetry must be when read in her native language. I have several of her works, and search for more.
One person found this helpful
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Jordan
5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful
Reviewed in the United States on December 2, 2015
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These poems are so sublime, I keep it on my table and pick it up every once in a while for a jolt.
3 people found this helpful
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Meg Tuite
5.0 out of 5 stars Syzmborska is a breathtaking poet! LOVE!
Reviewed in the United States on March 10, 2017
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LOVE!
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Rhodora Rimbaud
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on May 11, 2015
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Wonderful collection!
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Matt
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on February 11, 2015
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Great!
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Michael J. Mazza
5.0 out of 5 stars A playful yet powerful poetic voice from Poland
Reviewed in the United States on September 29, 2005
"Miracle Fair: Selected Poems of Wislawa Szymborska" is translated into English by Joanna Trzeciak, and features a foreword by Czeslaw Milosz. The book also includes a biographical essay on the poet (pages 155-59). The essay notes that she was born in Poland in 1923 and received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1996. The essay also describes the challenges she faced as a writer under the communist regime that ruled Poland for decades. Also featured in the book are reproductions of whimsical collages created by Szymborska.

This is a rich and varied collection of poems. I was particularly struck by the author's wit, humor, and often biting satire. At times her work is graced by touches of the surreal or fantastic. Her voice can be both compassionate towards, and sharply critical of, humanity. Overall the book demonstrates her skill at using a variety of writerly techniques: direct address, personification, parallel structures, historical allusion, dialogue, and paradox. In her poetry she draws on the language of mathematics and other disciplines.

I found some of the most striking poems in the collection to be the following. "Commemoration": written in the form a charmingly iconoclastic prayer. "A Man's Household": a gentle and humorous satire of a man devoted to fix-it-yourself projects. "Starvation Camp at Jaslo": a cutting meditation on injustice and suffering that employs biting, grim satire. "The Turn of the Century": uses personification as a technique to look back critically at the 20th century ("Its years are numbered,/ its step unsteady"). "Torture": employs particularly powerful language as she looks at the title phenomenon.

Also worthy of note--"Water": finds a globe-encompassing revelation in a single drop of water. "A Word on Statistics": a cleverly structured, witty satire that leads to a real kicker of an ending. "Pi": a poem about the mathematical concept of the title. "Miracle Fair": a witty and wonderful piece that reminds me of the style and spirit of Pablo Neruda's great work "The Book of Questions." "Poetry Reading": pokes gentle fun at the poetic vocation.

The book as a whole is clearly the work of a skilled and confident master craftsperson who has a real passion to share her vision. Hers is a complex and compelling voice, at times grimly serious, at times playful and childlike. A number of her poems seem to invite the reader to partake of a dramatically altered, even magical perspective--a fresh and even radical new way of looking at the world around us. Her poems on violence and human suffering have a political edge and moral power that remind me of the work of Audre Lorde. And some of her poetry reminds me of Buddhist or Taoist thought--specifically, of teachings on emptiness and nonstriving. At her most luminous, Szymborska strikes me as firmly in the great tradition of poet-prophets exemplified by Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes, and other great voices.
21 people found this helpful
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R. Albin
5.0 out of 5 stars Joint Review of This Book and View From A Grain of Sand
Reviewed in the United States on December 28, 2013
These two anthologies are both selections of the work of the late, great Wislawa Szymborska. The selections are somewhat different, though both books feature her most famous poems. Szymborska's work is characterized by irony and mordant wit, even when dealing with the most weighty topics. Her language is direct and easily understood. An interesting aspect of reading these books together is that the different translators produce generally similar translations, suggesting that the original Polish is quite straightforward and unambiguous. Important themes are love, the indifference of the natural world, and the contingent nature of human existence. I find Szymborska's work somewhat reminiscent of Auden, though she certainly has her own distinctive style.
2 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Kevin J. Flint
5.0 out of 5 stars The Power of Rich Narrative
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 8, 2015
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I was lucky enough to receive this book as a gift over Christmas. By the end of the first chapter its powerful and richly evocative narrative had me gripped in the way the writing brings the history of the Stuarts to life in ways that remain entirely pertinent to our contemporary social world. I simply couldn’t put the book down!

As a historical novel charting the spectacular rise and fall of one of British history’s legendary characters, George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, the book immediately intrigued me in the way the politics of discursive practices concerned with historical events has largely served to maintain a number of pivotal historical figures at the time of the Stuarts in an almost permanent state of exclusion, as if they really had little part to play in shaping the history of the 17th century. In this sense from the start I loved the way the novel gave me some sense of moving towards some form of justice for such neglected characters. Womack’s crafting of her writing brings these characters to life!

What I particularly admired in her writing is the way she draws upon and gives expression to language from the 17th centuries without over-facing the reader and in so doing she makes the history of the Stuarts entirely relevant to contemporary readers. I particularly enjoyed the many different references to archival records taken from the period. In reading the narrative I became conscious of wonderful education I have received from this book. It opens the reader in my view to the best form of education – one that is based upon obviously well researched foundational knowledge that here in this narrative opens space for the reader for many new questions. In my view this book will be of great interest to specialist within a number of professional practices – not least historians, anthropologists, etymologists and others with interest in language, as well as sociologists and others interested in the sexual politics of the early modern period and others who simply enjoy a great story.

Womack’s art in creating her powerful narrative continually opened for me questions concerning the hegemonic powers at work in our contemporary society that in practice are cultivated and harvested continually each and everyday in our 21st century world by the monarchy, the lords, the land owning aristocracy. It encouraged me to begin thinking and engaging in my own research concerning the extent to which such powers so on that were seeded and structured in this period of history now identified in terms of the Stuarts.

Given contemporary interest within practices of social and educational research concerning the narrative, Womack’s chronicle now provides researchers with a wonderfully rich resource that could be employed as the basis for a number of possible studies that are entirely pertinent to life in our contemporary world.
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Tracey H
5.0 out of 5 stars Always apparently simple yet surprisingly deep
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 23, 2015
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Szymborska's poetry is wonderful and thought-provoking.
This is a different translator to my preferred choice (Claire Cavanagh) so I am looking forward to comparing the similarities and differences.
No, I don't need to get out more! You need to read more Szymborska!
One person found this helpful
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Ruth
4.0 out of 5 stars Magic and philosophy trip...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 31, 2016
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Szymborska'a poetry is accessible, yet fresh and surprising. She takes a subject and trips off in an unexpected direction, perhaps a philosophical trot, perhaps a magical tour, and so often a delight. And this is not the philosophical posturing that bigs up the self and gets so wearing, this is light hearted and lovely. If you like 'Miracle Fair', you may also like 'Trust' by Rachel Bentham.
 Trust
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