A Word on Statistics by Wislawa Szymborska, Translated by Joanna Trzeciak

A Word on Statistics

by Wislawa Szymborska, Translated by Joanna Trzeciak

Out of every hundred people

those who always know better:

fifty-two.

Unsure of every step:

almost all the rest.

Ready to help,

if it doesn't take long:

forty-nine.

Always good,

because they cannot be otherwise:

four—well, maybe five.

Able to admire without envy:

eighteen.

Led to error

by youth (which passes):

sixty, plus or minus.

Those not to be messed with:

forty and four.

Living in constant fear

of someone or something:

seventy-seven.

Capable of happiness:

twenty-some-odd at most.

Harmless alone,

turning savage in crowds:

more than half, for sure.

Cruel

when forced by circumstances:

it's better not to know,

not even approximately.

Wise in hindsight:

not many more

than wise in foresight.

Getting nothing out of life except things:

thirty

(though I would like to be wrong).

Doubled over in pain

and without a flashlight in the dark:

eighty-three, sooner or later.

Those who are just:

quite a few at thirty-five.

But if it takes effort to understand:

three.

Worthy of empathy:

ninety-nine.

Mortal:

one hundred out of one hundred—

a figure that has never varied yet.

Wislawa Szymoborska was a Polish poet whose fame on the world stage increased dramatically when she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1996. She said of her vocation: "I prefer the absurdity of writing poems to the absurdity of not writing poems."

The poem above, a skinny poem (long and thin) is very representative of her work. There is humor, irony, playfulness, a sociological examination, wryness, and a close look at the every day. Plus, it is entirely made-up! I love poems that are imaginative, either wholly or in small bits.

Szymoborska takes a very common trope--the survey--and plays with it while exposing many of our everyday fobiles. How often did you see yourself here?

I love how she starts--honestly, how many of us think we know better? So that hooks most of us in right away, because we want to know what else she knows about us.

I especially like the ones with qualifiers: ready to help (if it doesn't take long) and good, because they cannot be otherwise (qualified by "always").

The poem gets darker as it goes. Our foolish younger years of stanza 7 brings a smile, but stanza 8--"those not to be messed with"--has equal parts of "oh, that's me" and "uh-oh, what does she mean by 'messed with'"?

Next comes fear, seemingly balanced by happiness (but look at those low numbers!). Savage, cruel, incapable of learning, materialistic, and pain.

Stanza 16 seems to be a reprieve, but stanza 17 corrects.

Those who are just:

quite a few at thirty-five.

But if it takes effort to understand:

three.

We, as in most of humanity, are given a break here in the penultimate stanza--we are all worthy of and in need of empathy. The poet seems to be forgiving most of us whose failings she has put on display in this poem.

The last stanza reminds us that no matter where we fall as far as kindness, knowledge, cruelty, etc., we are all going to die, which in this poem doesn't seem devastating. It seems like the perfect manner in which to end this poem with its statistics. This one does not need to have a source cited--we all know it is true.

This poem was published in Miracle Fair, her 2002 book published by W.W. Norton. This book won the Heldt Translation Prize; the translator, Joanna Trzeciak, has won multiple awards for her translations.

I also recommend an earlier collection by Wislawa Szymborska, view with a grain of sand (1995, Harcourt Brace), which contains 100 earlier poems from a variety of books.