Disappointed tonight, the sky was dark mauve and grey

Yet on this phone camera it all comes out the same,anyway

Again looking I see it’s gone black

How dare it do that behind my back?

Darling ease up, the universe needs some slack

Poets need words that don’t bring on simultaneous handwringing.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/68657/how-to-and-how-not-to-write-poetry-56d2484397277

Advice for blocked writers and aspiring poets from a Nobel Prize winner’s newspaper column.
BY WISŁAWA SZYMBORSKA
Introduction
In the Polish newspaper Literary Life, Nobel Prize winning poet Wislawa Szymborska answered letters from ordinary people who wanted to write poetry. Clare Cavanagh, translates these selections.

The following are selections from columns originally published in the Polish newspaper Literary Life. In these columns, famed poet Wislawa Szymborska answered letters from ordinary people who wanted to write poetry. Translated by Clare Cavanagh, they appeared in slightly different form in our Journals section earlier this year.

To Heliodor from Przemysl: “You write, ‘I know my poems have many faults, but so what, I’m not going to stop and fix them.’ And why is that, oh Heliodor? Perhaps because you hold poetry so sacred? Or maybe you consider it insignificant? Both ways of treating poetry are mistaken, and what’s worse, they free the novice poet from the necessity of working on his verses. It’s pleasant and rewarding to tell our acquaintances that the bardic spirit seized us on Friday at 2:45 p.m. and began whispering mysterious secrets in our ear with such ardor that we scarcely had time to take them down. But at home, behind closed doors, they assiduously corrected, crossed out, and revised those otherworldly utterances. Spirits are fine and dandy, but even poetry has its prosaic side.”

To H.O. from Poznan, a would-be translator: “The translator is obliged to be faithful not only to the text. He must also reveal the full beauty of the poetry while retaining its form and preserving as completely as possible the epoch’s spirit and style.”

To Grazyna from Starachowice: “Let’s take the wings off and try writing on foot, shall we?”

To Mr. G. Kr. of Warsaw: “You need a new pen. The one you’re using makes a lot of mistakes. It must be foreign.”

To Pegasus [sic] from Niepolomice: “You ask in rhyme if life makes cents [sic]. My dictionary answers in the negative.”

To Mr. K.K. from Bytom: “You treat free verse as a free-for-all. But poetry (whatever we may say) is, was, and will always be a game. And as every child knows, all games have rules. So why do the grown-ups forget?”

To Puszka from Radom: “Even boredom should be described with gusto. How many things are happening on a day when nothing happens?”

To Boleslaw L-k. of Warsaw: “Your existential pains come a trifle too easily. We’ve had enough despair and gloomy depths. ‘Deep thoughts,’ dear Thomas says (Mann, of course, who else), ‘should make us smile.’ Reading your own poem ‘Ocean,’ we found ourselves floundering in a shallow pond. You should think of your life as a remarkable adventure that’s happened to you. That is our only advice at present.”

https://alchetron.com/Richard-Zimler#Our-love-for-the-life-we-survive-richard-zimler

Extract

Richard Zimler received the 2009 Alberto Benveniste literary prize in France for his novel Guardian of the Dawn. The prize is given to novels that have to do with Sephardic Jewish culture or history. It was awarded to him at a ceremony at the Sorbonne in January 2009.

Five of Zimler’s novels – Hunting Midnight (2005), The Search for Sana (2007), The Seventh Gate (2009), The Warsaw Anagrams (2013) and The Night Watchman (2016) – have been nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the richest prize in the English-Speaking world.

Zimler has also edited an anthology of short stories for which all the author’s royalties go to Save the Children, the largest children’s rights organization in the world. The anthology is entitled The Children’s Hours. Participating authors include Margaret Atwood, Nadine Gordimer, André Brink, Markus Zusak, David Almond, Katherine Vaz, Alberto Manguel, Eva Hoffman, Junot Díaz, Uri Orlev and Ali Smith.

By Salthouse Church the wind blew off your hat
We watched it flying like an unstrung kite
Then snow fell in cold Cromer,see the map!
A cat dosed by the fire in the warm pub
Yet near Salthouse winds blew off your hat
I’d have blown off too, were I less fat
These gales would give the sailing boats a fright
By Salthouse Church the wind blew off your hat
We watched it flying up in cold sunlight