TOMAS TRANSTRÖMER
translation by Patty Crane
Midwinter
A blue light
is streaming out from my clothes.
Midwinter.
Jingling tambourines of ice.
I close my eyes.
There is a soundless world
there is a crack
where the dead
are smuggled over the border.
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9 comments:
Thank you, Martha. I think the world has been wondering...
Wondering what? Who the hell Transtromer is, or why the hell he hasn't been given the recognition he deserves until now? I love his stuff. He is like Symborska, but even more brief. I think of Saluman and Simic, but with a sharper, leaner vision. He is my favorite poem of the week!!
For me it's the first, but without any begrudging him the award. I am very happy to be introduced to him!
Hmmm ... I know of Transtromer because Robert Bly has done some translations, and you know how much I love Bly. And I love the surrealists--if you want to call them that: those who are sometimes wild with their imagery--not so intent on reality as much as some poets. Magical realism? I don't think his work is called that, but though he is stark and spare I find a lot to relish in his word choices ...
My knowledge of contemporary and especially foreign poetry is full of gaps, so for me, it's good to have a guide now and again.
Bly is a good guide for the more spiritual and under-appreciated poets of the world, including Transtromer but also Machado, Lorca, and many others. Have you read the interview with him and his wife in the current APR? Brilliant!
No, but I will seek it out. Machado and Lorca I at least have an acquaintance with.
Do you know The Book of Luminous Things? Milosz is the editor ... it's international in scope.
I don't. Another one for the reading list. I was just talking about a Milosz poem the other night. Uh, talking about it as in telling people it existed...
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