The Acrobat: Essential Poems

A paperback original

A vibrant collection of the lasting, essential work of the Nobel Prize–winning poet Wisława Szymborska

Wisława Szymborska’s work is known for its precision, cleverness, deceptive simplicity, and the way the poet plays out domestic and human concerns against the tapestry of history. With a probing, skeptical, and witty eye, Szymborska presents readers with intellectual challenges and philosophical quandaries while remaining accessible and, sometimes, deceptively simple.

“A major poet whose dark, complex, and profoundly intelligent work might otherwise have remained lost to us” (Washington Post), Szymborska has benefitted from being sensitively translated and, in this slim essential collection, the best of her work is preserved for her existing audience while providing entry points for new readers.

Pithy, playful, ironic, and filled with profound observations, The Acrobat is the must-have collection of Szymborska’s most important poetry, also featuring “The Poet and the World,” her Nobel lecture.

“More than any poet I can think of, Szymborska not only wants to create a poetic state in her readers, but also to tell them things they didn’t know before or never got around to thinking about.” - Charles Simic, New York Review of Books