Selected Poems, 1954-1986
Tomas Tranströmer's poems are thick with the feel of life lived in a specific place: the dark, overpowering Swedish winters, the long thaws and brief paradisal summers in the Stockholm archipelago. He conveys a sense of what it is like to be a private citizen in the second half of the twentieth century.
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Winner of many prestigious awards, including the Bonner Award for Poetry, Germany's Petrarch Prize, and the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, Tomas Transtromer captures the mood of an era which is at once lonely and threatening. Few poets are capable of relating basic truths about the human condition in troubled times with such quiet grace and figurative skill. This volume vitally represents the immense talent and insight of one of the world's finest poets.Library JournalTranstromer's haunting poems, which frequently explore the boundary between human consciousness and the unknown (``I walk home through the humid woods'' and ``know suddenly that the plants have thoughts''), have long been admired by Robert Bly, among others. This selection of over 100 poems (rendered by 12 translators) bears ample testimony to the Swedish poet's gift for conveying the truths of time and selfhood that lie adjacent to the mundane routines of our technological welfare society. On a pilgrimage through a world that is half contemporary Sweden, half dream landscape, he shows us ``the blue wind flowers'' that ``open a secret passage to the real celebration, which is quiet as death.'' Frank Allen, Assoc. Dean, Continuing Education, Allentown Coll., Center Valley, Pa.
\ Library JournalTranstromer's haunting poems, which frequently explore the boundary between human consciousness and the unknown (``I walk home through the humid woods'' and ``know suddenly that the plants have thoughts''), have long been admired by Robert Bly, among others. This selection of over 100 poems (rendered by 12 translators) bears ample testimony to the Swedish poet's gift for conveying the truths of time and selfhood that lie adjacent to the mundane routines of our technological welfare society. On a pilgrimage through a world that is half contemporary Sweden, half dream landscape, he shows us ``the blue wind flowers'' that ``open a secret passage to the real celebration, which is quiet as death.'' Frank Allen, Assoc. Dean, Continuing Education, Allentown Coll., Center Valley, Pa.\ \
