Poets yearn, of course, to be published, read, and understood, but they do little, if anything, to set themselves above the common herd and the daily grind.
There's simply too much fuss about myself.
Everyone needs solitude, especially a person who is used to thinking about what she experiences. Solitude is very important in my work as a mode of inspiration, but isolation is not good in this respect. I am not writing poetry about isolation.
When I was young I had a moment of believing in the Communist doctrine. I wanted to save the world through Communism. Quite soon I understood that it doesn't work, but I've never pretended it didn't happen to me.
I cannot imagine any writer who would not fight for his peace and quiet.
I don't believe I have a mission. Sometimes I really have a spiritual need to say something more general about the world, and sometimes something personal.
I usually write for the individual reader -though I would like to have many such readers. There are some poets who write for people assembled in big rooms, so they can live through something collectively. I prefer my reader to take my poem and have a one-on-one relationship with it.
You know, I'm worried about Szymborska. I wish she would stop smoking.
