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Overview
A short selection of haunting, meditative poems from the winner of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Literature
Tomas Tranströmer can be clearly recognized not just as Sweden's most important poet, but as a writer of international stature whose work speaks to us now with undiminished clarity and resonance. Long celebrated as a master of the arresting, suggestive image, Tranströmer is a poet of the liminal: drawn again and again to thresholds of light and of water, the boundaries between man and nature, wakefulness and dream. A deeply spiritual but secular writer, his skepticism about humanity is continually challenged by the implacable renewing power of the natural world. His poems are epiphanies rooted in experience: spare, luminous meditations that his extraordinary images split open—exposing something sudden, mysterious, and unforgettable.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781466886124 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| Publication date: | 11/25/2014 |
| Sold by: | Macmillan |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 64 |
| File size: | 175 KB |
About the Author
Tomas Tranströmer (1933-2015) received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2011. His books of poetry, which have been translated into sixty languages, include The Deleted World and The Half-Finished Heaven, and he received numerous international honors during his lifetime. Tranströmer, a trained Swedish psychologist, worked for years in state institutions with juveniles and the disabled, and his work was often praised for the inventive ways in which it examined the mind. When he was awarded the Nobel Prize, the Swedish Academy stated that "through his condensed, translucent images, he gave us fresh access to reality."
Robin Robertson is from the northeast coast of Scotland. He has published five collections of poetry—most recently Hill of Doors—and has received numerous of accolades, including the Petrarca Prize, the E. M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and all three Forward Prizes. In 2006 he published The Deleted World, a selection of English versions of poems by Tomas Tranströmer, and has since translated two plays of Euripides’, Medea and The Bacchae.
Read an Excerpt
The Deleted World
By Tomas Tranströmer
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Copyright © 2006 Robin RobertsonAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4668-8612-4
CHAPTER 1
HÖSTLIG SKÄRGÅRD
storm
Plötsligt möter vandraren här den gamla
jätteeken, lik en förstenad älg med
milsvid krona framför septemberhavets
svartgröna fästning.
Nordlig storm. Det är i den tid när rönnbärs-
klasar mognar. Vaken i mörkret hör man
stjärnbilderna stampa i sina spiltor
högt över trädet.
kväll – morgon
Månens mast har murknat och seglet skrynklas.
Måsen svävar drucken bort över vattnet.
Bryggans tunga fyrkant är kolnad. Snåren
dignar i mörkret.
Ut på trappan. Gryningen slår och slår i
havets gråstensgrindar och solen sprakar
nära världen. Halvkvävda sommargudar
famlar i sjörök.
AUTUMNAL ARCHIPELAGO
storm
Suddenly the walker comes upon the ancient oak: a huge
rooted elk whose hardwood antlers, wide
as this horizon, guard the stone-green walls of the sea.
A storm from the north. It is the time of rowanberries.
Awake in the night he hears – far above the horned tree –
the stars, stamping in their stalls.
evening – morning
The mast of the moon has rotted, its sail grey with mildew.
The seagull makes a drunken sweep of the sea, the charred
chunk of jetty, the heavy undergrowth in the dark.
On the threshold. Morning beats and beats on the granite
gates of the sea, and the sun sparkles at the world.
Half-smothered, the summer gods fumble in the haar.
OSTINATO
Under vråkens kretsande punkt av stillhet
rullar havet dånande fram i ljuset,
tuggar blint sitt betsel av tång och frustar
skum över stranden.
Jorden höljs av mörker som flädermössen
pejlar. Vråken stannar och blir en stjärna.
Havet rullar dånande fram och frustar
skum över stranden.
OSTINATO
Under the buzzard's circling point of stillness
the ocean rolls thundering into the light; blindly chewing
its straps of seaweed, it snorts up foam across the beach.
The earth is covered in darkness, traced by bats.
The buzzard stops and becomes a star. The ocean rolls
thundering on, blowing the foam away across the beach.
PARET
De släcker lampan och dess vita kupa skimrar
ett ögonblick innan den löses upp
som en tablett i ett glas mörker. Sedan lyftas.
Hotellets väggar skjuter upp i himmelsmörkret.
Kärlekens rörelser har mojnat och de sover
men deras hemligaste tankar möts
som när två färger möts och flyter in i varann
på det våta papperet i en skolpojksmålning.
Det är mörkt och tyst. Men staden har ryckt närmare
i natt. Med släckta fönster. Husen kom.
De står i hopträngd väntan mycket nära,
en folkmassa med uttrykslösa ansikten.
THE COUPLE
They turn out the lamplight, and its white globe
glimmers for a moment: an aspirin rising and falling
then dissolving in a glass of darkness. Around them,
the hotel walls slide like a back-drop up into the night sky.
Love's drama has died down, and they're sleeping now,
but their dreams will meet as colours meet
and bleed into each other
in the dampened pages of a child's painting-book.
All around is dark, and silent. The city has drawn in,
extinguishing its windows. The houses have approached.
They crowd in close, attentive:
this audience of cancelled faces.
ANSIKTE MOT ANSIKTE
I februari stod levandet still.
Fåglarna flög inte gärna och själen
skavde mot landskapet så som en båt
skaver mot bryggan den ligger förtöjd vid.
Träden stod vända med ryggen hitåt.
Snödjupet mättes av döda strån.
Fotspåren åldrades ute på skaren.
Under en presenning tynade språket.
En dag kom någonting fram till fönstret.
Arbetet stannade av, jag såg upp.
Färgerna brann. Allt vände sig om.
Marken och jag tog ett spräng mot varann.
FACE TO FACE
In February life stood still.
The birds refused to fly and the soul
grated against the landscape as a boat
chafes against the jetty where it's moored.
The trees were turned away. The snow's depth
measured by the stubble poking through.
The footprints grew old out on the ice-crust.
Under a tarpaulin, language was being broken down.
Suddenly, something approaches the window.
I stop working and look up.
The colours blaze. Everything turns around.
The earth and I spring at each other.
EN VINTERNATT
Stormen sätter sin mun till huset
och blåser för att få ton.
Jag sover oroligt, vänder mig, läser
blundande stormens text.
Men barnets ögon är stora i mörkret
och stormen den gnyr för barnet.
Båda tycker om lampor som svänger.
Båda är halvvägs mot språket.
Stormen har barnsliga händer och vingar.
Karavanen skenar mot Lappland.
Och huset känner sin stjärnbild av spikar
som håller väggarna samman.
Natten är stilla över vårt golv
(där alla förklingade steg
vilar som sjunkna löv i en damm)
men därute är natten vild!
Över världen går en mer allvarlig storm.
Den sätter sin mun till vår själ
och blåser för att få ton. Vi räds
att stormen blåser oss tomma.
A WINTER NIGHT
The storm puts its mouth to the house
and blows to get a tone.
I toss and turn, my closed eyes
reading the storm's text.
The child's eyes grow wide in the dark
and the storm howls for him.
Both love the swinging lamps;
both are halfway towards speech.
The storm has the hands and wings of a child.
Far away, travellers run for cover.
The house feels its own constellation of nails
holding the walls together.
The night is calm in our rooms,
where the echoes of all footsteps rest
like sunken leaves in a pond,
but the night outside is wild.
A darker storm stands over the world.
It puts its mouth to our soul
and blows to get a tone. We are afraid
the storm will blow us empty.
VINTERNS FORMLER
I
Jag somnade i min säng
och vaknade under kölen.
På morgonen klockan fyra
då tillvarons renskrapade ben
umgås med varann kallt.
Jag somnade bland svalorna
och vaknade bland örnarna.
II
I lyktskenet är vägens is
glänsande som ister.
Det är inte Afrika.
Det är inte Europa.
Det är ingenstans annat än 'här'.
Och det som var 'jag'
är bara ett ord
i decembermörkrets mun.
III
Anstaltens paviljonger
utställda i mörkret
lyser som TV-skärmar.
En dold stämgaffel
i den stora kölden
utsänder sin ton.
Jag står under stjärnhimlen
och känner världen krypa
in och ut i min rock
som i en myrstack.
IV
Tre svarta ekar ur snön.
Så grova, men fingerfärdiga.
Ur deras väldiga flaskor
ska grönskan skumma i vår.
V
Bussen kryper genom vinterkvällen.
Den lyser som ett skepp i granskogen
där vägen är en trång djup död kanal.
Få passagerare: några gamla och några mycket unga.
Om den stannade och släckte lyktorna
skulle världen utplånas.
WINTER'S CODE
I
I fell asleep in my bed
and woke up under the keel.
At four in the morning
life's clean-picked bones
engage in brittle repartee.
I fell asleep among the swallows
and woke among eagles.
II
In the lamplight the ice on the road
gleams like glycerine.
This is not Africa.
This is not Europe.
This is nowhere else but 'here'.
And that which was 'I'
is only a word
in the darkness of December's mouth.
III
The asylum pavilions,
lit up in the night,
are bright as TV screens.
A hidden tuning-fork
in the great cold
throws out its shivering tone.
I stand under the starry sky
and feel the world thrill
through me, like the pulse
of ants in an anthill.
IV
Three black oaks rear through the snow:
rough, but nimble-fingered.
In the spring, their giant bottles
will froth with green.
V
The bus negotiates the winter night:
a flickering ship in the pine forest
on a road as narrow and deep as a dead canal.
Few passengers: some old, some very young.
If it stopped and switched off its lights
the world would be deleted.
ENSAMHET (I)
Här var jag nära att omkomma en kväll i februari.
Bilen gled sidledes på halkan, ut
på fel sida av vägen. De mötande bilarna –
deras lyktor – kom nära.
Mitt namn, mina flickor, mitt jobb
lösgjorde sig och blev kvar tyst bakom,
allt längre bort. Jag var anonym
som en pojke på en skolgård omgiven av fiender.
Mötande trafik hade väldiga ljus.
De lyste på mig medan jag styrde och styrde
i en genomskinlig skräck som flöt som äggvita.
Sekunderna växte – man fick rum där –
de blev stora som sjukhusbyggnader.
Man kunde nästan stanna upp
och andas ut en stund
innan man krossades.
Då uppstod ett fäste: ett hjälpande sandkorn
eller en underbar vindstöt. Bilen kom loss
och krälade snabbt tvärs över vägen.
En stolpe sköt upp och knäcktes – en skarp klang – den
flög bort i mörkret.
Tills det blev stilla. Jag satt kvar i selen
och såg hur någon kom genom snöyran
för att se vad det blev av mig.
SOLITUDE (I)
I was nearly killed here, one night in February.
My car shivered, and slewed sideways on the ice,
right across into the other lane. The slur of traffic
came at me with their lights.
My name, my girls, my job, all
slipped free and were left behind, smaller and smaller,
further and further away. I was nobody:
a boy in a playground, suddenly surrounded.
The headlights of the oncoming cars
bore down on me as I wrestled the wheel through a slick
of terror, clear and slippery as egg-white.
The seconds grew and grew – making more room for me –
stretching huge as hospitals.
I almost felt that I could rest
and take a breath
before the crash.
Then something caught: some helpful sand
or a well-timed gust of wind. The car
snapped out of it, swinging back across the road.
A signpost shot up and cracked, with a sharp clang,
spinning away in the darkness.
And it was still. I sat back in my seat-belt
and watched someone tramp through the whirling snow
to see what was left of me.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Deleted World by Tomas Tranströmer. Copyright © 2006 Robin Robertson. Excerpted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Title Page,Copyright Notice,
Dedication,
Introduction by Robin Robertson,
Höstlig Skärgård,
Autumnal Archipelago,
storm / storm,
kväll - morgon / evening - morning,
ostinato / ostinato,
Paret,
The Couple,
Ansikte mot ansikte,
Face to Face,
En vinternatt,
A Winter Night,
Vinterns formler,
Winter's Code,
Ensamhet (I),
Solitude (I),
I det fria,
Out in the Open,
Till vänner bakom en gräns,
To Friends Behind a Border,
Skiss i oktober,
Sketch in October,
Hemåt,
Calling Home,
Från mars - 79,
From March 1979,
Svarta vykort,
Black Postcards,
Eldklotter,
Fire Graffiti,
Från ön 1860,
Island Life, 1860,
Midvinter,
Midwinter,
Acknowledgments,
Also by Tomas Tranströmer,
About the Authors,
Copyright,