On October 3, 1996 the media announced the news that the Nobel prize had been awarded to Wislawa Szymborska. This information was greeted with enthusiasm by authorities at the Jagiellonian University, who decided to introduce the poet and her poetry to a wider audience through an exhibition at the Jagiellonian Library. The exhibition was organized into two phases: the first phase presented poetry volumes and opinions, while the second presented a more detailed study of her work.
By October 4th, the first exhibition phase was ready and found its place in the lobby of the Jagiellonian Library. The headlines of the newspapers displayed in the glass cases shouted: " Nobel for a Pole!, Nobel for Szymborska!, 1996 Literary Nobel Prize goes to Wislawa Szymborska!, Nobel Prize for the Mozart of Poetry, It has come at last! I want to shout out, that this is a small world..."
Poetry volumes, selected poems by the poet, translations into foreign languages, and current articles from local newspapers were displayed in the other four glass cases. The exhibition was open until December 15, 1996, and was treated as the forerunner to the main exhibition, which needed more time for preparation before its opening. We were hoping that the Nobel Prize winner would still have enough strength after all the Stockholm events to honor us with her presence at the opening ceremony!
On December 19th, just nine days after the Nobel Prize award ceremony, the main exhibition opened, with Wislawa Szymborska in attendance. The exhibition presentedthe body of Szymborska's literary work as well as a study of her creative process, and was scheduled to run through January 31, but due to public demand, was extended through February 14, 1997.
Wislawa Szymborska is the sixth Polish Nobel Prize winner in the history of the Nobel awards. The Nobel Prize for physics was awarded to Maria Sklodowska-Curie and her husband Piotr Curie in 1903, followed by The Nobel Prize for chemistry, awarded to Sklodowska-Curie in 1911. The Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to Henryk Sienkiewicz in 1905, Wladyslaw Reymont in 1924, and Czeslaw Milosz in 1980. Lech Walesa was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1983.
Szymborska has authored nine volumes of poetry: That's Why We Are Alive (1952), Questions Put to Myself (1954), Calling out to Yeti (1957), Salt (1962), No End of Fun (1967), Could Have (1972), A large Number, People on a Bridge, and The End and the Beginning (1993). She has written some 250 extraordinary poems. As Stanisaw Balbus, the noted expert on Szymborska's poetry, summed up at the exhibition's opening ceremony: "So few poems, so much poetry."
Poetry is exceptionally difficult to visualize. It should be read, but not in one breath. One can listen to it, reflect over it, recall it and repeatedly reach for it. We addressed the exhibition to lovers and connoisseurs of Szymborska's poetry, but we also know that Not everybody likes poetry. Therefore, we provided elements to capture the interest of the "not everyones" - for can someone love something one does not know and does not have time for? The case with poetry is the same as with classical music: The more you listen to it the more it attracts you.
A collection of printed materials, photographs, and manuscripts is desplayed in the exhibition. It was a lucky coincidence that on November 28, 1991, the Jagiellonian Library (the oldest library in Poland) asked for and received original drafts of poems from Wisawa Szymborska which had not landed in the "waste basket" - as Ryszard Kozik put it in his interview ("Gazeta Wyborcza" 1996, no 232). Additional drafts from the poet were obtained from the literary correspondence of Julian Przybos (1901 - 1970), poet, critic, and Director of the Jagiellonian Library from 1951 to 1955.
The exhibition also presents Szymborska's creative process, involving the choice and polishing of words, and the shaping of poems. Emphasis is placed on work prior to October 3, 1996. To aid understanding, the material is divided into sixteen parts. Her poetic work is presented chronologically, while the rest is presented along a mathematical pattern. The titles of the subsequent parts are: In Place of Biography; Literary Debut; I am Thinking up the World; Wislawa Szymborska's Letters to Julian Przybos from 1959-1966; Allegro ma non troppo; People on A Bridge; Some People Like Poetry; New Poems; Selected Poems; Epigrams and Limericks; Optional School Books; Other Works; Szymborska Translates Poetry; Poems by Szymborska in Translations; Nobel Prize; On the work of the Nobel Prize Winner.
The Nobel Prize winner is with us in her poetry - its message delivered to us through carefully selected words, in the thoughts she recorded on paper, and in the moments of her life that were captured in photographs. One can easly see a difference between the work of her literary debut and her most recently published volume of poetry. No small wonder, since forty years have passed since her first date of publish.
Szymborska made her debut on March 14, 1945 with her poem "I seek the Word" which was published in the newspaper "Dziennik Polski", and its literary insert "Walka" ("Straggle"). This periodical was very important to the time, having published work by some of the most outstanding and famous writers such as Julian Przybos and Czeslaw Milosz. The publication editors included Witold Zechenter and Adam Wlodek (who would later become Szymborska's husband).
Immediately after the war, Szymborska studied at the Jagiellonian University. She studied Polish and then Sociology, but never completed either degree. In reply to Jagiellonian University Rector Prof. Aleksander Koj's congratulatory letter on being awarded the Nobel Prize, Szymborska emphasized that she considered herself a spiritual graduate of the University, and that her ties with the Jagiellonian University have always been and still are very strong. The exhibition concludes with a photograph of the Nobel Prize gold medal, which Wislawa Szymborska gave to Rector Aleksander Koj during the meeting with University authorities on December 20, 1996. The medal is now on display near the golden Jagiellonian globe in the University museum at the Collegium Maius.
The ceremonial opening of the Polish Academic Information Center in Buffalo, New York (USA) will be held in April, 1997. To mark the event, the library at the University of Buffalo will host the exhibition on Wislawa Szymborska, which will be on loan from Kraków. This exhibit will be somewhat different from the original exhibition, as it must be modified for an American audience. Thus, poems by Wislawa Szymborska will be presented in their English translations. In 1965, Czeslaw Milosz translated Szymborska's poem I am too near into English, then published it in his anthology Postwar Polish Poetry.
An important volume of Szymborska's translated poems, Sounds, Feelings, Thoughts, was published in 1981; Magnus J. Krynski and Robert A. Maguire provided the translation. In 1989, this volume was again published as a bilingual poetry series (Polish-English) by Wydawnictwo Literackie. In Great Britain, the volume People on a Bridge was translated by Polish poet Andrzej Czerniawski (1990). The last important translation of Szymborska's poems into English was the volume View with a Grain of Sand (1995) by outstanding Polish translator Stanislaw Baranczak with Claire Cavanagh. To have an idea of the difficulties English speaking translators have with Szymborska's poems, one should read the article Americanizing Wislawa by Stanislaw Baranczak (Amerykanizacja Wislawy) published in the periodical "Teksty Drugie" 1991, no. 4.
Items in the exhibition are from the Jagiellonian Library, the University of Buffalo Library, and from private collections. The exhibition is organized with the help of both: Jagiellonian University of Krakow and University of Buffalo.
Danuta Bromowicz Organizer of the Exhibition