Contemporary International Writers

In this compilation of Wislawa Szymborska’s poems, the poem I found the most interesting and relatable was “Unexpected Meeting.” the reason I liked this poem over all the others is that you can tell how tense this meeting is without her saying it.
“Our tigers drink milk./ Our hawks walk on the ground./ Our sharks drown in water.” I chose this quote because it is the opposite of what we expected the author to say. We hope to go with the flow, not go against the grain. By describing a shark drowning in water, we can see how uncomfortable this narrator is. The use of an animal drowning in the environment it is supposed to thrive in is a fantastic analogy for how the narrator feels in this situation. They feel out of their comfort zone, and it feels like going against the grain of life.
I also really liked the poem “Pietà,” I love that this poem has both a Jesus storyline and an Achilles storyline. Seeing as the word pietà means “heel” which is where I got the impression of the Greek god. The line that really grabbed my attention was the first line, “In the small town where the hero was born: in seeing the monument, praising it for its size, shooing two hens off the steps of the abandoned museum, finding out where his mother lives, knocking and pushing the creaking door open.” The very first section of this poem brought to the idea of Achilles, this is because we don’t usually see the term hero associated with Jesus. We typically hear the word savior. This use of the word hero turns the poem to a new direction as it moves along. I wonder why the author chose the word hero to describe Jesus, was it because they wanted to show their beliefs in a poem? Was it due to the authors own religion? Or was it just based on the painting?