SOURCE: Baranczak, Stanislaw. “The Szymborska Phenomenon.” Salmagundi, no. 103 (summer 1994): 252-65.

In the following essay, Baranczak praises Szymborska's skillful use of language throughout her works of poetry, exploring both her popularity in Poland and the questioning nature of her verse.

More than three decades ago, in 1962, a slim book of poems bearing the monosyllabic and hardly soul-stirring title of Sól (Salt) came out in Poland. Its author, a woman then in her late thirties, had apparently considered it fitting to include in her collection, among other poems, her own verse epitaph. Obviously a tongue in cheek performance, this piece nonetheless seems to be quite serious about two things: first, it is an epitaph of no one but the author herself (identified by her surname in the poem's final line); second, it is an epitaph of a self-declared “oldfashioned” poet, a hopelessly backward user of rhyme and punctuation who...