Ep. 3: “No End of Fun by Wislawa Szymborska Transcript: Hello, and welcome to Poetry Soup! I’m your host, Emma Catherine Hoff. Each episode, I’ll discuss a different poem and poet. In this episode, I’ll be talking about the human race — which is, apparently, no end of fun. The great Polish poet, Wisława Szymborska, once said, “I prefer the absurdity of writing poems to the absurdity of not writing poems.” Lucky for her, she has written many amazing poems, and today I’ll be talking about one of her best works, titled “No End of Fun.” Wisława Szymborska was born on July 2, 1923 in Prowent, Poznań Voivodeship, Poland, which is now Kórnik, Poland. When her father died, her family moved to Torun and then Krakow, where she spent the rest of her life. Wisława Szymborska was a staff member of a literary review magazine called Życie Literackie (which means Literary Life). She was a poet, essayist, and translator. In 1996, she was given the Nobel Prize in Literature. Much of her work is centered around history and war, for example, in her poem “Hitler’s First Photograph,” she ironically uses ultra-sweet language to describe Adolf Hitler as a baby. Now I’m going to read “No End of Fun.” In this satirical poem, you learn how strange humans are, and how, in some cases, we are to be pitied. So he’s got to have happiness, he’s got to have truth, too, he’s got to have eternity did you ever! He has only just learned to tell dreams from waking; only just realized that he is he; only just whittled with his hand né fin a flint, a rocket ship; easily drowned in the ocean’s teaspoon, not even funny enough to tickle the void; sees only with his eyes; hears only with his ears; his speech’s personal best is the conditional; he uses his reason to pick holes in reason. In short, he’s next to no one, but his head’s full of freedom, omniscience, and the Being beyond his foolish meat— did you ever! For he does apparently exist. He genuinely came to be beneath one of the more parochial stars. He’s lively and quite active in his fashion. His capacity for wonder is well advanced for a crystal’s deviant descendant. And considering his difficult childhood spent kowtowing to the herd’s needs, he’s already quite an individual indeed— did you ever! Carry on, then, if only for the moment that it takes a tiny galaxy to blink! One wonders what will become of him, since he does in fact seem to be. And as far as being goes, he really tries quite hard. Quite hard indeed—one must admit. With that ring in his nose, with that toga, that sweater. He’s no end of fun, for all you say. Poor little beggar. A human, if ever we saw one. “No End of Fun” is the last poem in Szymborska’s 1967 collection by the same name. Szymborska begins her poem by talking about how humans desire so much. She writes how humans want everything — happiness, truth, and eternity. The ironic outside narrator, who is both Szymborska and some sort of extraterrestrial being, uses the words “did you ever!” three times throughout the poem to express disgust and surprise. This narrator appreciates the humans in the confines of their foolishness. The humans are like the country bumpkins of the universe, born beneath one of the “more parochial stars.” Szymborska repeats the exclamation of “did you ever!” three times in her poem. Then, in the end, she switches to, “if ever we saw one,” reinforcing the feeling of shock that we feel in the poem — how is it possible for us to even exist? She also comments on how young the human race really is, how quickly it will end, and how ignorant it is. According to Szymborska, man has “only just learned to tell dreams from waking.” Szymborska also writes, “a flint, a rocket ship;/easily drowned in the ocean’s teaspoon,/not even funny enough to tickle the void.” She shows that we’ve evolved so quickly, and yet we have so much more to explore and to do. She skips quickly through time here, and in the line, “with that ring in his nose, with that toga, that sweater.” Primitive man, ancient man, and modern man. The narrator uses this line to prove how old and wise it is. According to this cynical creature, human life spans are so short — you almost feel bad for them. The title of this poem is “No End of Fun,” and yet, the poem is about how the human race will end. It is almost like humanity is judging itself, and Szymborska is judging us, too. This poem makes us feel uncomfortable — most people would rather not think about these things. The poem is funny, but it’s also depressing. Szymborska shows that, compared to the rest of the universe, we’re really small and young — and that there could always be something out there that’s laughing at us. That was “No End of Fun” by Wislawa Szymborska. Maybe one day, you’ll meet a cynical alien just like the one she describes. I hope you enjoyed this episode of Poetry Soup, and I’ll see you soon with the next one!
Poetry Soup
Saturday Newsletter: November 5, 2022
Horse in Dreamland (oil pastel) by Tutu Lin, 13; published as the cover for Stone Soup November 2022 A note from Caleb Greetings! This week I have the pleasure of announcing our December 10 reading for Writing Workshop students: Blame the Squirrels, and Other Stories. The event is our first formal reading for Writing Workshop students in over a year. As a proctor for Conner’s workshop, I can’t wait to listen to the students I’ve gotten to know this session read their work, as well as have an opportunity to listen to the magnificent work of the students in William’s workshop. As writers, reading our work aloud is the culmination of hours and hours of effort, and there is no greater feeling than facilitating the measured silence of an audience and receiving raucous applause. So please, mark your calendars for 10 – 11:30 AM PST on December 10, and come out in support of our terrific writers—your presence goes a long way. The event is free to attend. I also wanted to talk briefly about the blog, namely in order to highlight the recent undertaking of one of our most prolific contributors, Emma Catherine Hoff. On top of having published multiple poems in Stone Soup magazine and numerous reviews and opinion pieces on the blog; on top of being one of our longest standing Writing Workshop students; and, on top of just being announced as a winner of our most recent Book Contest for her book of poems An Archeology of the Future (please scroll to see our winner in fiction, as well as the other finalists), Emma, 10, has created a podcast called Poetry Soup, in order to “share [her] love of poetry, and inspire others to read more of it.” She has already released two fantastic episodes, the first about John Ashbery’s sestina “The Painter”, and the second about the poem “The Keeper of the Sheep” by Fernando Pessoa, written under the heteronym Alberto Caeiro. Her third episode will go live either next week or the following, so make sure you take a visit to the Stone Soup blog, where these episodes exclusively air. Until next time, Announcing the 2022 Annual Book Contest Winners! We’re thrilled to announce the results of this year’s Stone Soup Annual Book Contest. It was a pleasure and an honor to read and consider all the manuscripts as well as incredibly difficult to select our two winners. We are excited to share more about the authors and their books in the coming months—stay tuned! ♦ Winners ♦ Poetry An Archeology of the Future, Emma Catherine Hoff, 10 Fiction The Handkerchief Woman, Lily Jessen, 14 ♦ Finalists ♦ Poetry REALITY IS HERE FOR YOU, Analise Braddock, 11 Imagination, Bethel Daniel, 12 Sunny Fitting Sangeeta, Raeha Khazanchi, 13 Simply Complicated, Madeline Male, 14 Scenes From Before, Pauline McAndrew, 14 Fiction Cousins, Emily Chang, 14 Let Me Go, Ariadne Civin, 13 Shattered Moon, Ivy Cordle, 13 Autumn Floods and Winter Fires, Nami Gajcowski, 12 In the Secret Cedar Woods, Elena Gil, 13 The Roaming Realm, Madeline Longoria, 14 Norcelia, Sabrina Lu, 14 These Words That I’ve Written, Jenna Reenders, 14 Maple of the Moss Folk, Kana Shackelford, 13 Overthrowing Antecessum, Isabella Washer, 13 Sparks, Eleanor Wernly, 11 Stone Soup is published by Children’s Art Foundation-Stone Soup Inc., a 501(c)(3) educational nonprofit organization registered in the United States of America, EIN: 23-7317498.
Poetry Soup Ep. 2 – “The Keeper of Sheep” by Fernando Pessoa
Ep. 2: “The Keeper of Sheep” by Fernando Pessoa Transcript: Hello, and welcome to Poetry Soup! I’m your host, Emma Catherine Hoff. Each episode, I’ll discuss a different poem and poet. Today, I’ll be talking about two different poets – one real and one fake. Can a poem be written by someone who doesn’t even exist? “The Keeper of Sheep” is written by Alberto Caeiro, which is a heteronym invented by the poet and writer Fernando Pessoa. A heteronym is different from a pseudonym, because a pseudonym is just a name, while a heteronym is an entire personality. I’ll talk more about the heteronym Alberto Caeiro later. But first, a little bit about Fernando Pessoa. Fernando Pessoa was born on June 13, 1888 in Lisbon, Portugal. When Pessoa was six years old, he made up his first heteronym, a man by the name of Chevalier de Pas. Pessoa created at least seventy-two heteronyms throughout his lifetime. Pessoa was a poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher, and philosopher. He was deeply influenced by English poets like William Shakespeare and Percy Bysshe Shelley. You can also see the influence of Walt Whitman in much of Pessoa’s work, including the poem we’ll be reading today. Fernando Pessoa died on November 30, 1935, in Lisbon, Portugal, at the age of 47. But now there’s another poet to talk about – Alberto Caeiro. In creating Caeiro, Pessoa had come up with a whole new personality with an entire history. Caeiro has had only a grade school education – he is a peasant who is in touch with his surroundings and is greatly influenced by them, yet not curious about their existence. According to Pessoa, Alberto Caeiro does not question the things around him – he has interesting ideas, but he simply takes in his surroundings without asking “why.” Speaking in the voice of another heteronym, Ricardo Reis, Pessoa said, “Caeiro, like Whitman, leaves me perplexed. We are thrown off our critical attitude by so extraordinary a phenomenon. We have never seen anything like it. Even after Whitman, Caeiro is strange and terrible, appallingly new.” Based on the personality of the heteronym Fernando Pessoa might be writing under at the time, the perspective of the poems differed in this way. Octavio Paz even called Caeiro the “innocent poet.” Since “The Keeper of Sheep” is a long poem, I’m only going to read part one and part nine. However, these parts are amazing even by themselves! I never kept sheep, But it’s as if I’d done so. My soul is like a shepherd. It knows wind and sun Walking hand in hand with the Seasons Observing, and following along. All of Nature’s unpeopled peacefulness Comes to sit alongside me. Still I’m sad, as a sunset is To the imagination, When it grows cold at the end of the plain And you feel the night come in Like s butterfly through the window, But my sadness is comforting Because it’s right and natural And because it’s what the soul should feel When it already thinks it exists And the hands pick flowers And the soul takes no notice. Like the clanking of cowbells Beyond the bend in the road, My thoughts are happy. My only regret is knowing they’re happy Because if I didn’t know it, They’d be glad and happy Instead of unhappy and glad. Thinking is discomforting like walking in the rain When the wind increases, making it look as if it’s raining harder. I’ve no ambitions or desires. My being a poet isn’t an ambition. It’s my way of being alone. And if sometimes in my fancy I desire to be a lamb (Or the whole flock of sheep So I can go over the hillside And be many happy things at the same time), It’s only because I feel what I’m writing when the sun sets Or when a cloud’s hand passes over the light And a silence runs off through the grass. When I sit down to write a poem Or when ambling along the main roads and bypaths, I write lines on the paper of my thoughts, I feel the staff in my hands And glimpse an outline of myself On top of some low-lying hill, Watching over my flock and seeing my ideas, Or watching over my ideas and seeing my flock, And smiling vaguely like one who doesn’t understand what’s said And likes to pretend he does. I greet everyone who’ll read me, Tipping my wide-brimmed hat to them As they see me at my door Just as the coach tips the top of the hill. I salute them and wish them sunshine, And rain when rain is called for, And may their houses contain Near an open window Somebody’s favorite chair Where they sit, reading my poems. And when reading my poems thinkin Of me as something quite natural – An ancient tree, for instance, In whose shade they thumped down When they were children, tired after play, Wiping the sweat off their hot foreheads With the sleeve of their striped smocks. (Translated and edited by Edwin Honig and Susan M. Brown) “The Keeper of Sheep” is a beautiful poem, and this is proven even in just the first part. Referring to the title, the poem is technically about “a” keeper of sheep, and Caeiro proves that he both is and is not this shepherd. He does not have any sheep, and therefore he does not watch over any – but his mind is full and he is content with his thoughts, which he must arrange and keep, like sheep. This is an extended conceit – it’s a metaphor that runs throughout the entire poem. So, really, this poem, like so many poems, is about Caeiro’s mind and his being a poet. Caeiro also says how he wants to be a lamb, or, in fact, a whole flock of lambs (so he can be “many happy things at the same time.”) So, basically, referring back to the extended
