Zbigniew Herbert
Who is Zbigniew Herbert
Zbigniew Herbert (IPA: [ˈzbiɡɲɛf ˈxɛrbɛrt] (listen); 29 October 1924 – 28 July 1998) was a Polish poet, essayist, drama writer and moralist. He is one of the best known and the most translated post-war Polish writers. While he was first published in the 1950s (a volume titled Chord of Light was issued in 1956), soon after he voluntarily ceased submitting most of his works to official Polish government publications. He resumed publication in the 1980s, initially in the underground press. Since the 1960s, he was nominated several times for the Nobel Prize in literature. His books have been translated into 38 languages.Herbert claimed to be a distant relative of the 17th-century Anglo-Welsh poet George Herbert.Herbert was educated as an economist and a lawyer. Herbert was one of the ...
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Zbigniew Herbert Poems
- A Knocker
There are those who grow
gardens in their heads
paths lead from their hair
to sunny and white cities
...
- Report From Paradise
In paradise the work week is fixed at thirty hours
salaries are higher prices steadily go down
manual labour is not tiring (because of reduced gravity)
chopping wood is no harder than typing
...
- Three Poems By Heart
I
I can't find the title
of a memory about you
...
- From The Top Of The Stairs
Of course
those who are standing at the top of the stairs
know
they know everything
...
- Daedalus And Icarus
Daedalus says:
Go on sonny but remember that you are walking and not flying
the wings are just an ornament and you are stepping on a meadow
...
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Zbigniew Herbert Quotes
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Comments about Zbigniew Herbert
- Koolhead17: to reach the source, you have to swim against the current. only trash swims downstream.
-- zbigniew herbert
- Infinita_fiori: it did not take any great character
our refusal dissent and persistence
we had a scrap of necessary courage
but essentially it was a matter of taste.
zbigniew herbert, the power of taste
- Christosganos: it was surprising to see this little fellow at boston logan airport at the gate area…but perhaps a reminder of herbert zbigniew’s passage from his report from the besieged city… “empty storehouses a rat became the unit of currency…”
- Drewdles305: zbigniew herbert’s encounter with spinoza
- Benwilko85: in every generation
there are those who
with stubbornness worthy of a better cause
wish to rip poetry
from the claws
of the everyday
— zbigniew herbert, ‘mr cogito, ars longa’
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