r/Poetry

*This poem was originally published in The New Yorker

Poem published 2014 in anthology Tools of the Trade: Poems for new doctors, by publisher Scottish Poetry Library. A copy was given, three years running, to all graduating doctors.

From her book Here, translated by translated by Clare Cavanagh and Stanisław Barańczak

This poem made me laugh initially, as do a lot of Szymborska’s poems, but then it felt sobering, chilling. In giving this one tame example and not any others, she forces the reader to consider what other examples of this phenomenon might exist in the world now— and in the world’s long and violent history.

Interesting to consider Violence as its own force. With fingers, with personality, with humor.

Interesting to borrow the language of an argumentative essay (with this example, demonstrates…) for a poem.

far too often i’ve let the possibility of sapphic love or encounters slip through my hands.

One of my favourite Heaney poems - I actually had it as the question on my English A-level on Thursday, and studying it really helped me realise just how much you can get out of one poem

Frieda Hughes wrote this poem in response to the BBC producing a film about her mother, which featured scenes of Plath's suicide.

* This poem was published in the British magazine Tatler in February 2003.