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                   Wislawa Szymborska (1923-)
  Translated by Magnus J. Krynski and Robert A. Maguire

                IN PRAISE OF SELF-DEPRECIATION

First Line: The buzzard has nothing to fault himself with.

This poem is protected by copyright and cannot be displayed without permission of the copyright holder. Titled Pochwala Zlego O Sobie Mniemania in Polish, it appeared in Szymborska's 1976 collection Wielka Liczba ("A Large Number"). The above translation can be found in:

  • Milosz, Czelslaw, ed. A Book of Luminous Things: An International Anthology of Poetry. New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1998.

    Szymborska was award the 1996 Nobel Prize for Literature "for poetry that with ironic precision allows the historical and biological context to come to light in fragments of human reality."