Poetry meme
Feb. 3rd, 2009 10:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zinnithThere is a meme making the rounds - post your favorite poem when you see someone else post theirs.
I'm not a huge fan of poetry. I don't read a lot of it. I have tried writing it, only to fail spectacularly. However, that year I studied creative writing, poetry was part of the curriculum and I came across this poem by Wislawa Szymborska. It's still pinned to my fridge door.
Onion - Wislawa Szymborska
Translated from Polish by Sharon Olds
It's really something, the onion
It doesn't have entrails.
It is itself, through and through,
all of it just onion.
Onionlike on the outside,
oniony to the core,
the onion could look into itself
without any fear.
In us lurks the strange and the wild
barely covered by the skin.
In us, an inferno of guts,
violent anatomy.
In the onion, nothing but the onion,
no twisted intestines,
Undressed many times, it repeats itself
to its depths.
A consistent creature, the onion,
a well-made thing.
Inside one, simply another,
in a larger, a smaller,
and in the next, the next.
Centrifugal fugue.
Echo in unison.
The onion, I do appreciate it:
the prettiest belly in the world.
It wears halos
for its own glory.
In us, fat, nerves, veins,
valves, and secrets.
For us it's unattainable,
the idiotism of perfection.
I don't know why I like it so much. It might be because I like onions, or because I love the Shrek movies (where ogres, just like onions and Zinniths, have layers), or it could be because the poet found just the right combination of words and put them in just the right order to get my attention. In any case, it's definitely a fridge door-worthy poem.
I'm not a huge fan of poetry. I don't read a lot of it. I have tried writing it, only to fail spectacularly. However, that year I studied creative writing, poetry was part of the curriculum and I came across this poem by Wislawa Szymborska. It's still pinned to my fridge door.
Onion - Wislawa Szymborska
Translated from Polish by Sharon Olds
It's really something, the onion
It doesn't have entrails.
It is itself, through and through,
all of it just onion.
Onionlike on the outside,
oniony to the core,
the onion could look into itself
without any fear.
In us lurks the strange and the wild
barely covered by the skin.
In us, an inferno of guts,
violent anatomy.
In the onion, nothing but the onion,
no twisted intestines,
Undressed many times, it repeats itself
to its depths.
A consistent creature, the onion,
a well-made thing.
Inside one, simply another,
in a larger, a smaller,
and in the next, the next.
Centrifugal fugue.
Echo in unison.
The onion, I do appreciate it:
the prettiest belly in the world.
It wears halos
for its own glory.
In us, fat, nerves, veins,
valves, and secrets.
For us it's unattainable,
the idiotism of perfection.
I don't know why I like it so much. It might be because I like onions, or because I love the Shrek movies (where ogres, just like onions and Zinniths, have layers), or it could be because the poet found just the right combination of words and put them in just the right order to get my attention. In any case, it's definitely a fridge door-worthy poem.
