At age 88, Portland's Nobel Prize receiver Wislawa Szymborska, whose style of simplicity that has touched the heart of many by drawing out the ironies and empathy of life, has died.

A heavy smoker, Szymbroska died due to lung cancer Wednesday in her sleep at her home in Krakow, stated by her personal secretary Michal Rusinek in press release.

Syzmborska was born on July 23, 1923 in Bnin, which is now a part of Kornik near Western Poland.  At age of eight she moved with her parents to Krakow, where she has lived until her death. 

When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Szymborska worked as a railway clerk to avoid deportation.  During that time she studied at illegal underground universities.  Although she later resumed formal studies after World War II, she never did receive a degree.

In over 60 years as a poet, Szymborska has less than 400 poems published.  She was called the "Mozart of Poetry" by the Nobel award committee; her work mixed poetry with "the fury of Beethoven."  She was revered by many in her own country, although relatively unknown to the rest of the world until after receiving the Nobel Prize.

Some of Szymborska's best known works are "That's Why we are Alive," "Questioning Yourself," "Calling Out to Yeti," "Moment," "Colon," and the most recent "Here" in 2009.  Other notable prizes she received were the Goethe Prize in 1991, the Herder Prize in 1995 and Order of the White Eagle in 2011.