Trafika Europe 5 - Slovenian Interlude

Bright Scythe (seven poems)

Tomas Tranströmer

Swedish Nobel Laureate poet Tomas Tranströmer was born in Stockholm in 1931. There is a quiet yearning presence in all his work, dedicated to setting a frame around those brief moments of transcendence, in language hewing as closely to the

direct experience as possible, while retaining the authenticity of rational sense. The resulting poems are jewel-boxes of the soul’s cusp. On the occasion of his passing earlier this year, it is timely to gain some further perspective on this legacy. Translator Patty Crane had worked closely and rigorously with the poet and his wife in Sweden to re-translate many of his poems, rendering them in English perhaps closest to the spirit of the originals. This volume of selected poems, Bright Scythe , is forthcoming very soon from Sarabande Books. Here we present a sampling of these new translations.

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