How to Start Writing (and When to Stop): Advice for Writers

Author: Wisława Szymborska

Translator: Clare Cavanagh 

Publisher: New Directions (2021)

In this witty “how-to” guide, Wislawa Szymborska has nothing but sympathy for the labors of would-be writers generally: “I myself started out with rotten poetry and stories,” she confesses in this collection of pieces culled from the advice she gave—anonymously—for many years in the well-known Polish journal Literary Life.

She returns time and again to the mundane business of writing poetry properly, that is to say, painstakingly and sparingly. “I sigh to be a poet,” Miss A. P. from Bialogard exclaims. “I groan to be an editor,” Szymborska responds.

Szymborska stubbornly insists on poetry’s “prosaic side”: “Let’s take the wings off and try writing on foot, shall we?” This delightful compilation, translated by the peerless Clare Cavanagh, will delight readers and writers alike.

Perhaps you could learn to love in prose.

"Szymborska’s assessments are refreshing to anyone who has gone through a writer’s “education” at American colleges and universities."

–Josh Christensen

"Endlessly witty."

–Paula Erizanu

"Her responses may seem harsh, but her criticisms are veiled insights, and her insights unveil depths."

–Minor Literatures

"Wit, wisdom and warmth are equally important ingredients in the mixture of qualities that makes her so unusual and every poem of hers so unforgettable. We love her poetry because we instinctively feel that its author genuinely (though by no means uncritically) loves us."