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When she submitted a few of the poems to the literary supplement of a local daily in 1945, the chief editor at the time, Adam Wlodek, was unimpressed.
He found the work weak and only published one poem after a major overhaul, which Szymborska agreed to for the sake of a paycheck.
But that first minor success encouraged her to keep at it until, half a century later, she was recognised both at home and abroad for the measured elegance and humour of her poetry.
She also wound up marrying Wlodek a few years after he salvaged that first poem. The relationship did not last, but they remained lifelong friends and Szymborska set up a poetry scholarship in his name.
She was a harsh critic of her own early work, describing some of the pro-communist poetry as "demagogic" and carefully destroying the worst of the batch before her death in 2012.
But she okayed the publication of the "Black Song" poems, Wozniakowski told AFP.
Szymborska published over 20 collections of poetry in her lifetime. They were translated into many languages but she was especially popular at home and in Italy, Spain and the United States.
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He found the work weak and only published one poem after a major overhaul, which Szymborska agreed to for the sake of a paycheck.
But that first minor success encouraged her to keep at it until, half a century later, she was recognised both at home and abroad for the measured elegance and humour of her poetry.
She also wound up marrying Wlodek a few years after he salvaged that first poem. The relationship did not last, but they remained lifelong friends and Szymborska set up a poetry scholarship in his name.
She was a harsh critic of her own early work, describing some of the pro-communist poetry as "demagogic" and carefully destroying the worst of the batch before her death in 2012.
But she okayed the publication of the "Black Song" poems, Wozniakowski told AFP.
Szymborska published over 20 collections of poetry in her lifetime. They were translated into many languages but she was especially popular at home and in Italy, Spain and the United States.
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