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Stigar

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41 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1973

8 people want to read

About the author

Tomas Tranströmer

155 books389 followers
His 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".

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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
Profile Image for Krishna Avendaño.
Author 2 books58 followers
February 10, 2013
Nota para el incompetente de Mascaró. Älv es un río grande, arroyo es bäck. Aun así, qué grande es Tranströmer:

El río congelado irradia sol
aquí es el techo del mundo
el silencio.

Den isbelagda älven strålar av sol
här är världens tak
tystnaden.
Profile Image for Erik Sundblom.
251 reviews8 followers
October 23, 2020
Decemberkväll -72

Här kommer jag den osynlige mannen, kanske anställd
av ett stort Minne för att leva just nu. Och jag kör förbi

den igenbommade vita kyrkan – därinne står ett helgon av trä
leende, hjälplös, som om man tagit ifrån honom glasögonen.

Han är ensam. Allt det andra är nu, nu, nu. Tyngdlagen som pressar oss
mot arbetet om dagen och mot sängen om natten. Kriget.
Profile Image for Mike.
1,440 reviews58 followers
July 18, 2018
These poems feel more like a pause for breath between Tranströmer's greater work in the ‘60s and the ‘70s, but are still worth checking out. Although my least favorite of his volumes to this point in his career, it contains what might be one of my favorite of his poems, “Further In.”
Profile Image for Gabriella.
84 reviews1 follower
December 31, 2022
My father brought me a few short books and among them was this collection of poems by Tomas Tranströmer and a collection of poems (by other poets) translated by him. There were two poems that made me feel. The book is in Swedish so both were read as such but I found the non-translated English version of the second one.



- Elegi av Tomas Tranströmer:

Jag öppnar den första dörren.
Det är ett stort solbelyst rum.
En tung bil går förbi på gatan
och får porslinet att darra.

Jag öppnar dörr nummer två.
Vänner! Ni drack mörkret och blev synliga.

Dörr nummer tre. Ett trångt hotellrum. Utsikt mot en bakgata.
En lykta som gnistrar på asfalten.
Erfarenhetens vackra slagg.



- Solitude Late at Night in the Woods (Ensamhet om natten i skogarna) by Robert Bly:

The body is like a November birch facing the full moon
And reaching into the cold heavens.
In these trees there is no ambition, no sodden body, no leaves,
Nothing but bare trunks climbing like cold fire!

My last walk in the trees has come. At dawn
I must return to the trapped fields,
To the obedient earth.
The trees shall be reaching all the winter.

It is a joy to walk in the bare woods.
The moonlight is not broken by the heavy leaves.
The leaves are down, and touching the soaked earth,
Giving off the odor that partridges love.
Profile Image for Teemu Helle.
184 reviews1 follower
May 24, 2024
Tranströmerin runot luettu Kootuista teoksista (Tammi 2011, suom. Caj Westerberg). Teoksessa oleva ruotsinnoksia ei Kootuista teoksista tietenkään löydy.

Tranströmerin runojen kirkkaus jatkuu entisenlaisena. Omiksi suosikeikseni nousevat Joulukuun ilta -72, ja Hajaantunut seurakunta. Molemmat uskonnollisaiheisia ja -kriittisiä: ”[…] Ja nyt minä ohitan // suljetun valkoisen kirkon – sen sisällä on puinen pyhimys, / hymyilevä, avuton, kuin siltä olisi viety silmälasit.”
Profile Image for bokanonym.
60 reviews1 follower
October 17, 2025
Tranströmers dikter är rätt lika dem i Mörkerseende, men mindre stämningsfulla och lite mer lättolkade. Blys dikter är rätt lika Tranströmers men det kanske beror på att Tranströmer översatte de. Pilinszkys är läskiga och saknar humor och glädje (förståeligt).
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews

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