Latest / The Daily Poem / Wisława Szymborska's "In Praise of My Sister"

Transcript

Wisława Szymborska's "In Praise of My Sister" · The Daily Poem

• 0:00
  [music]
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to The Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Sean Johnson, and today is Monday, July 20th, 2026.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Today's poem is by Vislava Zrmborska.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's called In Praise of My Sister.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: It starts out as this lighthearted confession, maybe, that the speaker sometimes...
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: The Daily Poem Podcast, davidkern.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: As it orients towards the actual appreciation of her sister.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: And she even lifts her sister's decent spoken prose into poetry in the final lines.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Giving her this beautiful,
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: repeated, all-encompassing, dactyl, everything, everything, everything.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's lovely.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Here it is.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: In praise of my sister.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: My sister does not write poems, and it's unlikely she'll suddenly start writing poems.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: She takes after her mother,
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: who did not write poems, and after her father, who also did not write poems.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Under my sister's roof, I feel safe.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing would move my sister's husband to write poems,
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: and though it sounds like a poem by Adam Macedonsky,
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: none of my relatives is engaged in the writing of poems.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: In my sister's desk there are no old poems, nor any new ones in her handbag.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: And when my sister invites me to dinner, I know she has no intention of reading me poems.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: She makes superb soups without half trying, and her coffee does not spill on manuscripts.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: In many families no one writes poems, but when they do it's seldom just one person.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes poetry flows in cascades of generations,
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: which sets up fearsome eddies in family relations.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: My sister cultivates a decent spoken prose.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: Her entire literary output is on vacation postcards that promise
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: the same thing every year,
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: that when she returns, she'll tell us everything, everything, everything.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: This has been The Daily Poem.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for listening.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: We'll be back tomorrow with another subscriber poem.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: In the meantime,
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: find us at dailypoempod.substack.com to listen to past episodes of The Daily Poem,
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: to like and share your favorites,
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: and to become a subscriber and supporter of the show.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: For all of us at Goldberry Studios, I'm Sean Johnson wishing you happy reading.