Poet of the Day:
Wislawa Szymborska
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Wislawa Szymborska (pronounced
Veeswava Shimborska
) is a Polish poet who won the 1996 Nobel Prize for Literature. From her birth in 1923 to her death in 20112, she experienced Nazi occupation, Soviet communism, and the return of democracy. Writing was her life’s work, as poet, editor, columnist, and translator.
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This poet belongs in our classrooms because . . .
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she is accessible, modern, and significant. Many of her poems are so concrete and simple-seeming that she doesn’t scare students off. But the simple words, straight-forward sentences, and familiar images are combined in ways that can lead to some surprisingly deep thought—whether it’s a playful consideration of language itself in "The Three Oddest Words" ("When I pronounce the word Silence / I destroy it"), flipping our usual thinking about the omnipotence of death in "On Death, without Exaggeration" (". . . but look at its countless defeats, / missed blows, / and repeat attempts!"), or the deeply compassionate and clear-eyed look at humanity in "A Word on Statistics." This last considers the proportion of people "out of a hundred" to which a variety of good and bad attributes apply, including "Ready to help, / if it doesn’t take long: / forty-nine" and "worthy of empathy: / ninety-nine."
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A Poem by Wislawa Szymborska
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A Word on Statistics
Out of every hundred people
those who always know better:
fifty-two.
Unsure of every step:
almost all the rest.
Ready to help,
if it doesn't take long:
forty-nine.
Always good,
because they cannot be otherwise:
four—well, maybe five.
Able to admire without envy:
eighteen.
Led to error
by youth (which passes):
sixty, plus or minus.
Those not to be messed with:
forty and four.
Living in constant fear
of someone or something:
seventy-seven.
Capable of happiness:
twenty-some-odd at most.
Harmless alone,
turning savage in crowds:
more than half, for sure.
Cruel
when forced by circumstances:
it's better not to know,
not even approximately.
Wise in hindsight:
not many more
than wise in foresight.
Getting nothing out of life except things:
thirty
(though I would like to be wrong).
Doubled over in pain
and without a flashlight in the dark:
eighty-three, sooner or later.
Those who are just:
quite a few at thirty-five.
But if it takes effort to understand:
three.
Worthy of empathy:
ninety-nine.
Mortal:
one hundred out of one hundred—
a figure that has never varied yet.
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Teaching Ideas for Use with the Poem "Possibilities"
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Preparation
: Students sit in table groups of four. Have a copy of "Possibilities" for each student to mark up.
Essential question
: How does a poet use the tools of language to communicate meaning?
Academic objectives
: (1) Identify how
syntax
(
parallelism
) and
diction
(simple/literal and complex/abstract) communicate meaning. (2) Make
inferences
.
Language objectives
: (1) Discuss observations about syntax, diction, and inferences. (2) Write poem draft using parallelism and simple/literal and complex/abstract words.
Intro
: Play the game "This or That": Ask the students, "Do you prefer dogs or cats?" Give them a few seconds to think, then request a show of hands, 1 finger for dogs and 2 for cats. In their groups of four, students share their reasons for their answers. Ask for several groups to contribute an interesting comment from their discussion to the whole group. What do we infer about people who like dogs vs. cats? Explain that you’re going to read a poem that is just a list of things the author "prefers." You and the students will read it a number of times, think about why the author chooses to reveal the things she does and why she says them in the way she does (diction and syntax), what we can infer about the author, and then will play around with writing your own draft modeled on hers.
Readings
: Each reading has a different focus. The teacher should model that focus with one or two examples each time. The first time the teacher can read the whole poem aloud. Subsequently, students may read on their own. For each reading, students mark up their copy, thinking particularly about that reading’s focus. After a sufficient amount of time, students discuss their findings in their groups of four, then share out from several groups with the whole group.
- Reading 1: Question the text. (Possible questions could include: "What’s the Warta?" or "What does 'talking to doctors about something else' mean? What’s the something else? In fact, what’s the original thing she doesn’t want to talk to doctors about?")
- Reading 2: Notice. Pick 3+ lines/phrases that caught your attention (Model: "hell of chaos to the hell of order"—how the opposites—chaos and order—are both called "hell.")
- Reading 3: Categorize/compare. See how many categories of lines you can discover looking at sentence structure (syntax). (Model: ones that give a comparison and ones that don’t; ones that give a reason) and language (diction) (Model: very specific and very general). Follow-up question: To how many of the ones without a comparison can you supply the usual, understood one? (Model: “I prefer cats” [to dogs]) (Note: It is possible to do a lesson on parallelism here, and to further it to the nouns, phrases, and clauses that can be used as the object of "I prefer.")
- Reading 4: Respond. Which line do you find most interesting? Pick one and describe why the author chose that and what you infer from it about her. (Model: Dickens to Dostoyevsky—both long classic novels, but she prefers English humor to Russian philosophy?) What lines connect and what can you infer? (Model: A preference for the "hell of chaos" seems to connect with a preference for dogs with uncropped tails and zeroes on the loose and makes her seem like someone who is more relaxed, natural, go-with-the-flow than regimented and organized). Which lines describe you? Which are very different from you? Which could you use a different noun for? (Example: I prefer John Green to John Grisham.) Would you like to hang out with this poet? Why or why not? Write 1 sentence. [This could be an exit ticket.]
Draft Poem:
Ask students to write a draft poem modeled on the structure of "
Possibilities
" or an alternate poem. (I tell my students, "Poetry is not a spectator sport." We always watch a pro, figure out her moves, then do a quick "scrimmage" draft, trying out the moves for ourselves. At the beginning of the next period, we share in table groups. Each group shares a favorite line with the class. At the end of the unit, we take one of our drafts to a final draft.) Here are some guidelines that could be offered for a draft poem based on "Possibilities":
- At least 12 lines, each starting "I prefer. . . ."
- A variety of endings: simple/literal and complex/abstract, sets of opposites (I prefer x to y) and stand-alones (I prefer x), nouns/verbs/phrases/clauses.
- End with a philosophical statement of your preferred way of seeing the world.
More Poems by Wislawa Szymborska
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KIM ESSENBURG has taught in international Christian schools in Japan since 1987. She loves to read, write, play volleyball, and go out for coffee with friends, and recently read her own poetry at her first open mic! Essenburg loves to help students discover their love of reading and writing, and to help teachers discover ways to even better engage students in learning. She has two daughters and three grandchildren, and blogs at
kimessenburg.blogspot.com
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