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The Three Oddest Words

| Posted on: January 16th, 2008 | Categories: Creativity, Personal, Poetry | No Comments »
Other related posts and pages: |Fortunate | On breaking the rules (and words) | Poem or Pie | The art of science | The gift that keeps on giving, or Why I love the web |

A poem by Wislawa Szymborska
Translated by S. Baranczak & C. Cavanagh

When I pronounce the word Future,
the first syllable already belongs to the past.

When I pronounce the word Silence,
I destroy it.

When I pronounce the word Nothing,
I make something no non-being can hold.




I was introduced to Wislawa Szymborska’s poetry by a story on NPR. The one above is one of my favorites, playing as it does self-referentially with language. More examples of her poetry can be found here


| Posted on: January 16th, 2008
Other related posts and pages: |Fortunate | On breaking the rules (and words) | Poem or Pie | The art of science | The gift that keeps on giving, or Why I love the web |


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