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New Collected Poems
Tomas TRANSTROMER
- GenresPoetry
225 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
4 people are currently reading
63 people want to read
About the author
Tomas Tranströmer
154 books388 followersHis poetry, building on Modernism, Expressionism, and Surrealism, contains powerful imagery concerned with issues of fragmentation and isolation. “He has perfected a particular kind of epiphanic lyric, often in quatrains, in which nature is the active, energizing subject, and the self (if the self is present at all) is the object,” notes critic Katie Peterson in the Boston Review.
Critic and poet Tom Sleigh observed, in his Interview with a Ghost (2006), that “Tranströmer’s poems imagine the spaces that the deep then inhabits, like ground water gushing up into a newly dug well.”
His honors include the Lifetime Recognition Award from the Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry, the Aftonbladets Literary Prize, the Bonnier Award for Poetry, the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, the Oevralids Prize, the Petrarch Prize in Germany, the Swedish Award from International Poetry Forum,the Swedish Academy’s Nordic Prize, and especially the 2011 Nobel Prize in literature. His work has been translated into more than 50 languages.
Tranströmer suffered a stroke in 1990, and after a six-year silence published his collection Sorgegondolen (Grief Gondola) (1996). Prior to his stroke, he worked as a psychologist, focusing on the juvenile prison population as well as the disabled, convicts, and drug addicts. He lives in Sweden.
On Thursday, 6th of October 2011 he was awarded the Nobel prize in Literature "because, through his condensed, translucent images, he gives us fresh access to reality".
Critic and poet Tom Sleigh observed, in his Interview with a Ghost (2006), that “Tranströmer’s poems imagine the spaces that the deep then inhabits, like ground water gushing up into a newly dug well.”
His honors include the Lifetime Recognition Award from the Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry, the Aftonbladets Literary Prize, the Bonnier Award for Poetry, the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, the Oevralids Prize, the Petrarch Prize in Germany, the Swedish Award from International Poetry Forum,the Swedish Academy’s Nordic Prize, and especially the 2011 Nobel Prize in literature. His work has been translated into more than 50 languages.
Tranströmer suffered a stroke in 1990, and after a six-year silence published his collection Sorgegondolen (Grief Gondola) (1996). Prior to his stroke, he worked as a psychologist, focusing on the juvenile prison population as well as the disabled, convicts, and drug addicts. He lives in Sweden.
On Thursday, 6th of October 2011 he was awarded the Nobel prize in Literature "because, through his condensed, translucent images, he gives us fresh access to reality".
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
October 4, 2021
Tomas Tranströmer (1931-2015) is considered one of the best poets of the late 20th century, officially confirmed by his Nobel Prize in 2011. Reading this collected work immediately reveals his technical mastery. Sometimes Tranströmer is wrongly ranked among the surrealists. But that's only because his technique consists in associating the most improbable images with each other, which sometimes comes across as slightly surreal. But it is precisely this association that creates a field of tension and thus opens up unsuspected perspectives. Take this sober Postludium:
I drag like a grapnel over the world's floor—
everything catches that I don't need.
Tired indignation. Glowing Resignation.
The executioners fetch stone. God writes in the sand.
Silent rooms.
The furniture stands in the moonlight, ready to fly.
I walk slowly into myself
through a forest of empty suits of armor.
Yet I have to say that I am not completely captivated by his poetry. It strikes me that Tranströmer mainly focuses on the external world, especially nature, and completely ignores both the inner-personal and the relating to other people. You will hardly find a reference to these existential aspects - and of 'emotions' in general - in his poems. And that gives his poetry something distant and aloof, which is reinforced by precisely that connection of separate, external things. That makes Tranströmer a little less appealing to me. But as mentioned, his technical superiority, which is expressed, for example, in deceptively simple verses (as in his haiku), cannot be doubted.
I drag like a grapnel over the world's floor—
everything catches that I don't need.
Tired indignation. Glowing Resignation.
The executioners fetch stone. God writes in the sand.
Silent rooms.
The furniture stands in the moonlight, ready to fly.
I walk slowly into myself
through a forest of empty suits of armor.
Yet I have to say that I am not completely captivated by his poetry. It strikes me that Tranströmer mainly focuses on the external world, especially nature, and completely ignores both the inner-personal and the relating to other people. You will hardly find a reference to these existential aspects - and of 'emotions' in general - in his poems. And that gives his poetry something distant and aloof, which is reinforced by precisely that connection of separate, external things. That makes Tranströmer a little less appealing to me. But as mentioned, his technical superiority, which is expressed, for example, in deceptively simple verses (as in his haiku), cannot be doubted.
March 16, 2018
“The Couple”
They switch off the light and its white shade
glimmers for a moment before dissolving
like a tablet in a glass of darkness. Then up.
The hotel walls rise into the black sky.
The movements of love have settled, and they sleep
but their most secret thoughts meet as when
two colours meet and flow into each other
on the wet paper of a schoolboy’s painting.
It is dark and silent. But the town has pulled closer
tonight. With quenched windows. The houses have approached.
They stand close up in a throng, waiting,
a crowd whose faces have no expressions.
Mystical Swedish poems! Would like to spend more time with him, properly, deeply. But enjoyed what I encountered.
They switch off the light and its white shade
glimmers for a moment before dissolving
like a tablet in a glass of darkness. Then up.
The hotel walls rise into the black sky.
The movements of love have settled, and they sleep
but their most secret thoughts meet as when
two colours meet and flow into each other
on the wet paper of a schoolboy’s painting.
It is dark and silent. But the town has pulled closer
tonight. With quenched windows. The houses have approached.
They stand close up in a throng, waiting,
a crowd whose faces have no expressions.
Mystical Swedish poems! Would like to spend more time with him, properly, deeply. But enjoyed what I encountered.
January 31, 2012
These poems are absolutely stunning and I keep going back to them and re-reading. I've also got a copy in Italian and Swedish, so I can compare the translations. I don't understand Swedish, but it gives me an idea of what the originals looked like and sounded like when read aloud by a Scandanavian friend.
Transtromer is quiet and unobtrusive, but the imagery is always exact, conveying the meaning and emotion of the poem perfectly.
Transtromer is quiet and unobtrusive, but the imagery is always exact, conveying the meaning and emotion of the poem perfectly.
April 7, 2015
In Sweden he has been called a 'buzzard poet' because his haunting, visionary poetry shows the world from a height, in a mystic dimension, but brings every detail of the natural world into sharp focus. His poems are often explorations of the borderland between sleep and waking, between the conscious and unconscious states.
August 21, 2012
Makes me wish my grandparents had taught me more Swedish so I could read them in the original.
February 28, 2023
Citaat : Allegro I play Haydn after a black day and feel a simple warmth in my hands. The keys are willing. Soft hammers strike. The resonance green, lively and calm. The music says freedom exists and someone doesn't pay the emperor tax. I push down my hands in my Haydnpockets and imitate a person looking on the world calmly. I hoist the Haydnflag - it signifies: "We don't give in. But want peace.' The music is a glass-house on the slope where the stones fly, the stones roll. And the stones roll right through but each pane stays whole.
Review : De nobelprijs literatuur 20011 ging naar de Zweedse dichter Tomas Tranströmer (Stockholm 1931). Deze kan gerekend worden tot de belangrijkste Europese dichters van dit moment. Zijn gedichten werd en over de gehele wereld vertaald en hij ontving verscheidene prestigieuze prijzen, zoals de Westduitse Petrarca Prijs, de Pilot Prijs, de internationale Neustadtprijs voor literatuur en de prijs van de Zweedse Academie. In 1990 was een aflevering van het tijdschrift World Literature Today aan hem gewijd.
In Tranströmers werk nemen -naast de natuur- dromen, schemertoestanden tussen waken en slapen een belangrijke plaats in. Hij lijkt in zijn gedichten de scherpe scheiding die wij normaal tussen bewustzijn en onderbewustzijn, tussen dag- en nachtleven aanbrengen, te willen slechten. Zijn poëzie speelt zich af in een grensgebied. Hij beschrijft niet 'de werkelijkheid' of 'de droom', maar creëert een wrijving tussen die twee die net niet tot een symbiose leidt, en een vreemde onrust teweegbrengt. Tomas Tranströmer is psycholoog en ook musicus. Deze beide elementen hebben zijn werk duidelijk beïnvloed. Gedurende jaren was hij verbonden aan het Zweedse arbeidsbureau waar hij zich bezighield met vraagstukken van reclassering, invaliditeit en drugsverslaving. De dichter Bernlef heeft zijn werk in het Nederlands vertaald maar ik leerde Tranströmer kennen door een heel mooie Engelse vertaling van Robin Fulton. Prachtig werk!
Review : De nobelprijs literatuur 20011 ging naar de Zweedse dichter Tomas Tranströmer (Stockholm 1931). Deze kan gerekend worden tot de belangrijkste Europese dichters van dit moment. Zijn gedichten werd en over de gehele wereld vertaald en hij ontving verscheidene prestigieuze prijzen, zoals de Westduitse Petrarca Prijs, de Pilot Prijs, de internationale Neustadtprijs voor literatuur en de prijs van de Zweedse Academie. In 1990 was een aflevering van het tijdschrift World Literature Today aan hem gewijd.
In Tranströmers werk nemen -naast de natuur- dromen, schemertoestanden tussen waken en slapen een belangrijke plaats in. Hij lijkt in zijn gedichten de scherpe scheiding die wij normaal tussen bewustzijn en onderbewustzijn, tussen dag- en nachtleven aanbrengen, te willen slechten. Zijn poëzie speelt zich af in een grensgebied. Hij beschrijft niet 'de werkelijkheid' of 'de droom', maar creëert een wrijving tussen die twee die net niet tot een symbiose leidt, en een vreemde onrust teweegbrengt. Tomas Tranströmer is psycholoog en ook musicus. Deze beide elementen hebben zijn werk duidelijk beïnvloed. Gedurende jaren was hij verbonden aan het Zweedse arbeidsbureau waar hij zich bezighield met vraagstukken van reclassering, invaliditeit en drugsverslaving. De dichter Bernlef heeft zijn werk in het Nederlands vertaald maar ik leerde Tranströmer kennen door een heel mooie Engelse vertaling van Robin Fulton. Prachtig werk!
April 18, 2025
Tranströmer writes about the world around him as if each item is a person he has fallen in love with. His love extends from the simple beauty of the natural world to the grand architecture he encounters in his travels to functional items of everyday life.
These literary effusions are woven into scenes of past, present, and future, and he manages to make everything seem like it's all happening simultaneously. The water, the trees, the boats, the buildings - they are all happening now, and soon, and before.
These literary effusions are woven into scenes of past, present, and future, and he manages to make everything seem like it's all happening simultaneously. The water, the trees, the boats, the buildings - they are all happening now, and soon, and before.
February 18, 2022
I had higher and maybe too specific expectations. Some of his work is really lovely and compelling to me, but I couldn't grab a hold of the poems in the way that I had hoped.
August 30, 2014
4 1/2 stars. Per word, Tomas Transtromer might have the greatest reputation of any living writer. Everything he's published in book form over the last fifty years fits comfortably into a volume of 240 pages; he's been translated into 60 languages, with complete editions in about 20, and he's won several prestigious literary prizes, including the Nobel in 2011. Naturally, one approaches his work with stratospheric expectations, and he comes awfully close to meeting them. His poems, almost all of them very short, are reflective and philosophical, rather than confessional and dramatic. There's a lot of what one would expect: tidy poems filled with the sea, rain, snow, the woods; insects are also featured prominently, as are classical music and transportation (cars, boats, trains). Sometimes one is surprised: "Baltics," by far his longest poem, has wonderful breadth and majesty, and "Fire Jottings" is a great little erotic poem. I kept wishing for more big emotions and ideas and kept feeling a twinge of disappointment when encountering yet another elegant poem presenting an enigmatic succession of images that, however beautiful, didn't quite add up. My guess is only Swedish readers get the real deal and Transtromer in his native language is more vivid and powerful. Nonetheless, in most poems there was an image or simile or phrase I underlined, and I highly recommend him.
December 20, 2010
I don't hurry through poetry books, and this one was special, given to me by a Swedish friend in June of this year.
The snow angel on the cover makes this an appealing book to put out to read on Winter Solstice, surrounded by snow and mystery, each poem a Bell, albeit translated, and track, through truth barriers (to borrow from some of the sections.) I particularly appreciated the notes in the introduction where he talks about what went into the poems, although he is careful to avoid telling us what we ought to find.
I enjoy poems which use the emotive power of dream, strong image, and provide unusual perspective.
The snow angel on the cover makes this an appealing book to put out to read on Winter Solstice, surrounded by snow and mystery, each poem a Bell, albeit translated, and track, through truth barriers (to borrow from some of the sections.) I particularly appreciated the notes in the introduction where he talks about what went into the poems, although he is careful to avoid telling us what we ought to find.
I enjoy poems which use the emotive power of dream, strong image, and provide unusual perspective.
August 2, 2024
This is a great translation of Transtromer, whose poems here span his lifetime and cement the bond between his life as a psychiatrist and nature's indelible influence on him. This is a wonderful must-read.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews