Wislawa Szymborska
Extract from 'Letters of the Dead'

Everything they foresaw has happened quite differently,
or a little differently – which is the same thing.
The most fervent stare trustingly into our eyes;
by their reckoning, they’ll see perfection there.
 

This extract from 'Letters of the Dead' is in memory of Wislawa Szymborska, Nobel winning poet, who died 1 February 2012. 'Letters of the Dead' first appeared in Poetry Review in 2001. The full version, a translation by Vuyelwa Cerwin, can be read in A Century of Poetry Review. 

   

February news

3 Haunting Scottish ballads like Tam o' Shanter 'empower' women (BBC)

2 Timothy Donnelly wins $100,000 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award (Wall Street Journal)

1 Wislawa Szymborska, Nobel winning poet, dies at 88 (New York Times)

1 Fourteen groups share £100,000 in Clore Foundation's Poetry and Literature Awards (Culture24.org)

1 On designing the cover for Larkin's 'Complete Poems' (Creative Review)

January news

31 As neo-fascists claim Ezra Pound, his family says, 'hands off' (Time World)

31 Poet Laureate compared to writers of 'Mills & Boon' (Telegraph)

30 Theodore Enslin obituary (Guardian)

27 Adonis: a life in writing (Guardian)

26 Wanted: poetry to inspire a nine-year-old girl (Telegraph)

25 Celebrate Burns Night and Rabindranath Tagore anniversary with indian haggis (Telegraph)

24 Is the Costa book of the year to go to poetry for the 3rd year running? (Guardian)

23 There's more to Burns Night than haggis and neeps (Scotsman)

23 Tam o' Shanter voted best Burns (BBC)

23 The mystery of poetry editing: from Eliot to Burnside (Telegraph)

20 Andrew Motion reads a poem for his friend WG Sebald (BBC)

20 Meet the author: Carol Ann Duffy (BBC)

20 Meet the author: Matthew Hollis (BBC)

18 What are the most quoted lines of poetry? (Guardian)

17 John Burnside: How poetry can change lives (Telegraph)

16 John Burnside wins TS Eliot Prize (BBC)

13 Dean Atta's poem about Stephen Lawrence goes viral (Guardian)

12 Quentin Blake has an exhibition at the Foundling Museum of works commissioned for hospitals (Telegraph)

12 Armitage "Sometimes there is nothing sweeter in poetry than a deliberate anachronism." (New Statesman)

3 Carol Ann Duffy wins the poetry category of the Costa Book Prize (BBC)

3 OBE for Poetry Society's SLAMbassadors mentor Chris Preddie (Bookseller)

1 Edward Lear's life as an artist is remembered as his bicentenary year begins (Guardian)

December news

 31 Geoffrey Hill has been Knighted in the New Year Honours List (Guardian)

31 Welsh poet and playwright Dannie Abse becomes a CBE

31 Author, poet and broadcaster Clive James has been awarded a CBE (Telegraph)

24 Jo Shapcott wins Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry (Independent)

More Poetry in the News