Wislawa Szymborska (1923-2012)

There will be better tributes than I can provide to the Nobel prize-winning poet, Wislawa Szymborska, who died in Krakow this week aged 88. I'd be among the first to question how anyone can appreciate poetry in a language one doesn't understand but I liked to think when I first read her poems that we shared some kinship of themes and approach, which was partly at least prompted by the fact that she had a poem called Museum, just like me. And with a small output of quiet poems, and apparently being stunned into silence by her Nobel prize, there really should be more poets like her. But like her I certainly did.

Also, locally, Portsmouth Poetry Society lost Brian Wells last week, a proper poet and very nice man, a founder member of the society 40 years ago, who will be much missed.