Illustrating a poem for the first time
Following “Wild Garlic and poetry”: here’s my very fist adventure with poetry illustration. “Any Case” by Wislawa Szymborska
Last week I told you about Wild Garlic, my very first illustrated story. Today I share my very first illustrated poem. I wanted to challenge myself to illustrate one of my favourite poems.
Any Case by Wisława Szymborska, translated from the Polish by Grazyna Drabik and Sharon Olds.
“ It could have happened.
It had to happen. It happened earlier. Later.
Closer. Farther away.
It happened, but not to you.
You survived because you were first. You survived because you were last.
Because alone. Because the others. Because on the left. Because on the right.
Because it was raining. Because it was sunny. Because a shadow fell.
Luckily there was a forest. Luckily there were no trees.
Luckily a rail, a hook, a beam, a brake, A frame, a turn, an inch, a second.
Luckily a straw was floating on the water.
Thanks to, thus, in spite of, and yet. What would have happened if a hand, a leg, One step, a hair away?
So you are here? Straight from that moment still suspended?
The net’s mesh was tight, but you? Throught the mesh? I can’t stop wondering at it, can’t be silent enough. Listen,
How quickly your heart is beating in me.
Any Case, by Wislawa Szymborska ⒸIllustrated by Marty Molinari
Wonderful Marty, thank you for sharing this <3
..And what a poem to choose! This so poignant and raw -you captured it with beauty and depth