Czeslaw Milosz

by Leszek Chudzinski

Czeslaw Milosz

a Nobel prize winner in literature

translated a book of poetry

by Anna Swirszczynska

to facilitate the pronunciation

of the poet’s name in America

he published her poems

under the name of Anna Swir

Swirszczynska and her name

survived the second world war

the Warsaw Uprising in ’44

but not the translator’s sleight of hand

with a stroke of a pen

she became Swir

someone who never lived

never loved

never wrote a single poem

From Open Book: A Western Washington Poets Network Anthology, Kenmore, Washington: East Point West Press, 2026, page 5. See also “Poetry Reading,” “Priceless Gifts,” and “That Brat.” Anna Swir [Świrszczyńska] (1909–1984) was a Polish poet who survived the brutal Warsaw Uprising.