56967. Szymborska, Wislawa. The Columbia World of Quotations. 1996

The Columbia World of Quotations. 1996.


NUMBER:	56967
QUOTATION:	History counts its skeletons in round numbers. A thousand and one remains a thousand, as though the one had never existed: an imaginary embryo, an empty cradle, ... emptiness running down steps toward the garden, nobody’s place in line.
ATTRIBUTION:	Wislawa Szymborska (b. 1923), Polish poet. “Hunger Camp at Jaslo,” lines 6-9, 12-13, translated by Grazyna Drabik and Austin Flint. I know that Symborska’s first book of poetry was published in 1948, but I don’t know whether this poem was in it. In any event, that book was attacked by her government and had to be withdrawn. Neither do I know the date of the translation.