An urn containing the poet’s ashes has been placed in the family tomb, the resting place of her parents and sister.
In keeping with the huge cultural significance of her death at the age of 88 years-old on 1 February, the guest list for the funeral of the poet who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1996 included President Bronisław Komorowski and the First Lady Anna, Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Speaker of the Parliament Ewa Kopacz and the Minister of Culture Bogdan Zdrojewski.
President Komorowski told mourners that Szymborska's poetry helped teach her readers to see “the beauty which is all around us”.
She also wrote “in a language of the ordinary person – simple, sincere – without concealing her emotions or feelings," he said.
Actor Andrzej Seweryn said at the beginning of the ceremony: "We meet today at Rakowicki Cemetery, in the poet's favourite city, Krakow, to say goodbye to one of the most enlightened [figures] of Polish culture and world literature; poet, translator, essayist, literary critic. [W]e say goodbye today, to Wislawa Szymborska, the great lady of poetry.”
Anders Bodegard, the translator of Szymborska’s poetry into Swedish, and the Lithuanian poet Tomas Venclova were also present at the ceremony.
Those who were not able to enter the cemetery, watched the ceremony on a huge TV screen close to the main gate.
As the ceremony began at noon, a trumpeter played the melody of a popular hit ‘Nothing can ever happen twice’, a setting to a poem by Szymborska, from the tower of St Mary Church in the city’s Market Square, instead of the traditional bugle call which happens, day in, day out, in Krakow.
There was another musical element in the ceremony: the urn was placed in the grave to the tune of a song by Ella Fitzgerald, one of the late poet’s favourite artists.
The organizers of the funeral have asked those who wished to bring flowers to make a donation to one of the city’s hospices instead.
The Museum of Contemporary Art MOCAK will be the venue tonight of a literary soiree dedicated to Wisława Szymborska’s memory.
The programme includes reminiscences by her friends, including the prominent poets Adam Zagajewski and Ryszard Krynicki, and a mini-concert by the jazz pianist Marcin Wasilewski and the jazz trumpeter Tomasz Stańko, who will perform a piece written in the poet’s tribute. (pg/mk)
Obituary Wisława Szymborska