Five Swedish Poets: Kjell Espmark, Lennart Sjögren, Eva Ström, Staffan Söderblom, Werner Aspenström

by Robin Fulton

Acclaimed translator Robin Fulton has chosen a wide-ranging selection from the works of four men and one woman for this volume of contemporary Swedish poetry.: Kjell Espmark, Lennart Sjogren, Staffan Soderblom, Werner Aspenstrom, and Eva Strom. Five Swedish Poets includes the last poem by Aspenstrom, who died in January 1997, entitled "Dear Squirrel" a poem he was working on it in the final week of his life. A brief, but informative essay by Fulton, on each poet, accompanies their work. From Fulton's preface to the book:

"If poetry translation is a form of vandalization then I have been vandalizing the work of these five poets on and off for many years....My justification for presenting these particular five poets, and not some other group of five or more, is purely subjective: I have followed their work with deepening interest over the years. I think the contrasts between them are enough to give variety to the grouping, and while I am all too aware of what is lost as their poems are lifted out of their native habitat I hope that at least some of their individual qualities can be gathered from my versions".

Genres: Poetry

200 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1998

About the author

Robin Fulton (b. 1937) is a Scottish poet. He edited the Scottish poetry journal, Lines Review.

Fulton gained an MA in 1959 and PhD in 1972 from the University of Edinburgh. From 1969 to 1971 he held the Writers' Fellowship at the University. He was senior lecturer at Stavanger University in Norway from 1973 to 2006. He now lives on the coast at Hafrsfjord near Stavanger.

Reviews

[Ljubomir · Rating 3 out of 5]

An intriguing book for anyone interested in modern (Swedish) poetry. ('Modern' meaning from the second half of the 20th century, but keep in mind, that the youngest of the authors included here, Eva Ström and Staffan Söderblom, are both 64 years old.)

Of the five authors selected in this collection, I was familiar only with Kjell Espmark, and I liked his poems, even though they were a bit too ambiguous and cryptic for my taste, but that is nothing unusual in modern poetry.
A common theme in many of Espmark's poems is history. Another one is the thin line between reality and fiction. These two worlds feed each other. They exist in parallel and when we cross from one to the other we get new points of view on old subjects, the familiar becomes new.

Lennart Sjögren's poems are like fragments, not stories. He writes about animals, nature and alienation. The animals in his poems are not friendly, their images are cold and prophetic. There is a clash between the world of men and nature, but unlike Espmark's poems, here the connection between the two worlds is ominous.
I didn't particularly like most of Sjögren's poems, but I did find a few favourites among them.

In many of Eva Ström's poems the reader can find frustration with violence, existence and religion. I didn't like her style, however, and I can say she is definitely not my cup of tea.

Staffan Söderblom seemed as a breath of fresh air, compared with what I had read so far. He is, out of the five, the author whose poems describe the most poetic images. He also writes about nature, but not as a world separated from ours, rather as the only world. His poems are not anxious like many of the rest in this collection, but wild and melancholic. But I cannot say there is a poem of his which I particularly like and he certainly did not impress me much.

Werner Aspenström is certainly my favourite out of the poets presented here. The excerpts of his works featured here include both poetry and prose text. Generally said, he writes about the mysteries of life and the universe, which cannot be explained. The world does not seem real and the protagonist tries to grab on to something which would give him a sense of reality, usually memories and various details from the material world.


Overall this is a good representation of modern Swedish poetry. The absence of Tomas Tranströmer seems strange, but Robin Fulton explains that with the fact that he has already published a separate collection with poems by Tranströmer alone.

Aside from Aspenström and single poems by some of the other authors, I was not impressed, but I enjoyed the book. And if you are more of an admirer of modern poetry than I am you are likely to enjoy it even more.