The Acrobat

These intimate, immediate poems were written during the precarious years of Soviet occupation in Poland. Rooted in the pains and joys of the everyday, they ask us what it means to live out our lives amid global conflict and its aftermath. Underlying Szymborska's work is a continual sense of astonishment at having survived, as well as the disbelief and delight that life goes on - that the acrobat's hands have caught the trapeze.Featuring Szymborska's Nobel Prize acceptance speech as an afterword.