When World War II broke out in 1939, she continued her education in underground classes. From 1943, she worked as a railroad employee and managed to avoid being deported to Germany as a forced labourer. During this time, her career as an artist began, with illustrations for an English-language textbook. She also began writing stories and occasional poems. In 1945, she began studying Polish literature before switching to sociology at Jagiellonian University in Kraków. There, she became involved in the local writing scene, and met and was influenced by Czesław Miłosz. In March 1945, she published her first poem, "Szukam słowa" ("Looking for words"), in the daily newspaper "Dziennik Polski". Her poems continued to be published in various newspapers and periodicals for a number of years. In 1948, she quit her studies without a degree, due to poor financial circumstances; the same year, she married poet Adam Włodek, whom she divorced in 1954. They remained close until Włodek's death in 1986. Their union was childless. Around the time of her marriage, she was working as a secretary for an educational biweekly magazine as well as an illustrator. Her first book was to be published in 1949, but did not pass censorship as it "did not meet socialist requirements".