New Directions Publishing Corporation How to Start Writing (and When to Stop): Advice for Writers

"In this witty "how-to" guide, Wis±awa Szymborska has nothing but sympathy for the labors of would-be writers generally: "I myself started out with rotten poetry and stories," she confesses in this collection of pieces culled from the advice she gave-anonymously-for many years in the well-known Polish journal Literary Life. She returns time and again to the mundane business of writing poetry properly, that is to say, painstakingly and sparingly. "I sigh to be a poet," Miss A. P. from Bialogard exclaims. "I groan to be an editor," Szymborska responds. Szymborska stubbornly insists on poetry's "prosaic side": "Let's take the wings off and try writing on foot, shall we?" This delightful compilation, translated by the peerless Clare Cavanagh, will delight readers and writers alike"-- At once kind and hilarious, this compilation of the Nobel Prize-winning poet’s advice to writers is illustrated with her own marvelous collages Literary LifePerhaps you could learn to love in prose Autorid: Wislawa Szymborska, Clare Cavanagh