There is something almost fragile, something disarmingly vulnerable and at times unwieldy about the poetry of Wislawa Szymborska; fragile, vulnerable, and unwieldy in a similar way to one of Mendelssohn's "Songs without Words." Her sense of irony undercuts any pretension (a vice that she seems completely to lack in herself), and becomes a weapon, deftly cutting and destabilizing any attempt by others to mask the truth.