Lines 1-4

The title of Zagajewski's “Self-Portrait” suggests that the focus of the poem is the speaker's attempt to define himself. In line 1, the speaker identifies himself as a writer, as someone who spends half of his day writing with “a computer, a pencil, and a typewriter.” In line 2, he makes a vague reference to time, when he notes, “One day it will be half a century.” He does not say whether he means that one day he will be fifty years old, suggesting that he is approaching that milestone, or whether the half a century will mark the period of time that has passed since a particular important event. The event might be the date the speaker left his home and traveled to the first in the series of “strange cities” to which he refers in line 3. The repetition of the word “strange” in lines 3 and 4 implies...