Pochwała starości, czyli o małych dziewczynkach w poezji Wisławy Szymborskiej i Joanny Kulmowej (prolegomena)

Abstract

Many poems by W. Szymborska and J. Kulmowa, especially those published in the latest poetry volumes, deal with old age. They are a poetic “farewell gesture” to one’s own works, which – as Anna Legeżyńska claims – is a crowning of every artistic biography. The author of the article, however, has chosen a more optimistic version of old age and, in accordance with Joanna Kulmowa’s suggestion, concentrated on the poems which are a nostalgic return to childhood symbolized by poetic images of little girls. The poems become an epitaphic link with a former biographic space. It is in the artistic innocence of little girls where lies the longing for poetic fulfilment that restores faith in human and the power of every existence. That is a celebration of old age which, thanks to W. Szymborska and J. Kulmowa, is one of the most unique phenomena of contemporary literature.