"After arriving in Stockholm to receive her Nobel, reporters at the airport asked Szymborska about the first poem she ever wrote. She replied with modesty and humor familiar to her readers. “It’s hard to say what the first one was about because I started very early to write poems. I was about 4 years old,” she said. “Of course they were clumsy and ridiculous. But when one poem was right, my father took it and gave me some money to buy chocolates. “So I can say I started living by my poetry when I was 4."

Boston.com | Poland’s 1996 Nobel poet Szymborska dies at 88