Who is Anna Swirszczynska

Anna Świrszczyńska (also known as Anna Swir) (1909–1984) was a Polish poet whose works deal with themes including her experiences during World War II, motherhood, the female body, and sensuality.

Biography

Świrszczyńska was born in Warsaw and grew up in poverty as the daughter of an artist. She began publishing her poems in the 1930s. During the Nazi occupation of Poland she joined the Polish resistance movement in World War II and was a military nurse during the Warsaw Uprising. She wrote for underground publications and once waited 60 minutes to be executed. Czesław Miłosz writes of knowing her during this time and has translated a volume of her work. Her experiences during the war strongly influenced her poetry. In 1974 she published Building the B...
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Anna Swirszczynska Poems

  • The Second Madrigal
    A night of love
    exquisite as a
    concert from old Venice
    played on exquisite instruments. ...
  • The Greatest Love
    She is sixty. She lives
    the greatest love of her life.

    She walks arm-in-arm with her dear one, ...
  • The Ghetto: A Mother
    Cuddling in the arms her half-asphyxiated baby, howling,
    she ran up the staircase of the apartment building that was set ablaze.
    From the first floor to the second.
    From the second to the third. ...
  • The Same Inside
    Walking to your place for a love fest
    I saw at a street corner
    an old beggar women.
    I took her hand, ...
  • She Does Not Remember
    She was an evil stepmother.
    In her old age she is slowly dying
    in an empty hovel.
    ...
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Top 10 most used topics by Anna Swirszczynska

Street 2 Corner 2 Love 2 Face 2 Hear 2 Body 2 Sleep 2 Laughter 2 Roof 2 I Love You 2


Anna Swirszczynska Quotes

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Comments about Anna Swirszczynska

Ansfavwords: i am filled with love as a great tree with the wind as a sponge with the ocean, as a great life with suffering, as time with death. anna swirszczynska
Ansfavwords: i am filled with love as a great tree with the wind as a sponge with the ocean, as a great life with suffering, as time with death. anna swirszczynska
Ansfavwords: i am filled with love as a great tree with the wind as a sponge with the ocean, as a great life with suffering, as time with death. anna swirszczynska
Hlmt_bot: anna swirszczynska — 'i envy you. every moment. you can leave me. i cannot leave myself.'
Hlmt_bot: anna swirszczynska — 'i envy you. every moment. you can leave me. i cannot leave myself.'
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Poem of the day

Edgar Albert Guest Poem
The Killing Place
 by Edgar Albert Guest

We're hiking along at a two-forty pace
We 're making life seem like a man-killing race,
With our nerves all on edge and our jaws firmly set
We go rushing along; with our brows lined with sweat
And our cheeks pale and drawn every minute we dash,
And the goal that we 're after is merely more cash.

We 're out for the money, the greenbacks and gold,
...

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