A Little Girl Tugs at the Tablecloth

While audiences ideally read poetry in its original language of composition, good translators offer readers a way to experience works from writers and cultures that would otherwise be unavailable to them. Szymborska writes in Polish; translators Clare Cavanagh and Stanisław Barańczak have adapted her works for English-speaking audiences, including this version of “A Little Girl Tugs at the Tablecloth.” Szymborska’s works appear around the world, translated into most European languages, along with Arabic, Chinese, and Korean versions, among others. A translating partnership like the one Barańczak and Cavanagh maintain can render the most nuanced versions possible, especially for modern and contemporary writers; Barańczak’s stronger in Polish while Cavanagh has a better command of English, but the subtleties of wordplay and irony in Szymborska’s works require a deft understanding of both languages. Szymborska’s use of juxtaposition and tone often affects the entire purpose of the poem, and for the tableau in “A Little Girl Tugs at the Tablecloth” to convey all of its meaning, even the verb tense makes a difference. The speaker’s empathy for the little girl—and her ongoing, wry acknowledgement of the little girl’s power—require the right diction to approximate the consistency of tone throughout the poem. When reading any poet in translation, establishing the translators’ relationship to the original author or locating multiple interpretations of the work can offer additional insights. Given their personal relationship with Szymborska, Cavanagh and Barańczak provide as close as possible to an original experience reading Szymborska’s works in English.