2 January 2013 Wisława Szymborska’s Drawer

Original furniture and a part of the book collection of Wisława Szymborska and memorabilia connected with her person will be placed in the room that will be opened in Szołayscy’s Tenement House in Krakow on the first anniversary of the poet’s death. A space called Wisława Szymborska’s Drawer will be arranged in the building which houses a branch of the National Museum . Michał Rusinek, the poet’s long-year secretary and currently the President of the Wisława Szymborska Foundation, explains that because of its microscopic size, the poet’s apartment at the intersection of 18 Stycznia (now Królewska) and Nowowiejska streets was called the “drawer”.

In her poem Possibilities Szymborska listed desk drawers among many things she preferred. “She considered drawers to be the greatest invention of mankind and loved them. The drawer unit in her apartment consisted of 36 drawers in which she kept, among others, a collection of old postcards,” said Rusinek.

The poet did not have a separate workroom. She wrote in her bedroom. In Szołayscy’s tenement house there will be an opportunity to see, among others, the sofa, the drawer unit, a few paintings and several knick knacks from the apartment of the Noble prize winner. A telephone will be placed next to the sofa; those who will lift up the receiver will hear a poem read by Szymborska or her short speech.

The audience will see masks and postcards collected by the poet and photographs of her taken under boards with intriguing names of places. Poetry enthusiasts of will have an opportunity to look at particular stages of the creation of her poems – from the manuscript through the typescript with corrections to the printed work.

“Such places usually allow us to reach a human being. The drawer will be a space allowing us to enter the realm of poetic imagination by means of various keys: objects, photographs and fragments of poems and to understand motifs of Wisława Szymborska’s works,” said Rusinek to the Polish Press Agency.

Zofia Gołubiew, Director of the National Museum, points out that it will not be a memorial room: “I hope it will be a living place in which meetings co-organised by the Szymborska Foundation will take place”, she says.

Szymborska’s Drawer will be arranged by Pracownia Teren Prywatny. The opening of the exhibition is planned at the beginning of February.

Wisława Szymborska died on the 1st of February 2012. She was buried in the family tomb at the Rakowicki Cemetery in Krakow.

Source: Polish Press Agency