Poetry and goodness NORWID – A VERSATILE GENIUS Wisława Szymborska, a Polish Nobel Prize winner, once described poet’s work as being “sentenced to hard norwids”. Yet “Norwid” is no common noun here. It is a surname which for Polish readers means a characteristic bearded face, the fate of an emigrant, with life filled with hope and despair, and death in poverty. First of all, however, it stands for a genius that remained unacknowledged. It stands for an observer and a reporter. A thinker and an illustrator. A giant of philosophical poetry and the most fascinating and perhaps the most difficult Polish poet. It stands for the highest level of initiation into poetry, and an author of the most intriguing, the most beautiful, full and bold phrases.
Is the bird sullying the nest, which it does, Or one who speaking of it does not allow?