Poet of the Hour: Tomas Tranströmer

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Admit it, when you heard that this year's Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Tomas Tranströmer, most of you went 'Tomas who?' right? Well, if you didn't, bravo! I personally had no clue of his existence till the award and if it weren't for the Nobel Prize I'm not sure if I'd ever have stumbled on his work. Tomas Tranströmer is a Swedish poet so most of his poems are translations, but according to critics they are very good translations. There's plenty of bio information about him now more than ever, so I won't go there.

According to The New Yorker the best time to read Tranströmer is at night, alone and in silence. I did a bit of Googling around and managed to read a few of his poems; I am yet to find one that really wows me though. If you are familiar with his work please do share some. Here are a couple I was particularly intrigued by.



After A Death

Once there was a shock
that left behind a long, shimmering comet tail.
It keeps us inside. It makes the TV pictures snowy.
It settles in cold drops on the telephone wires.

One can still go slowly on skis in the winter sun
through brush where a few leaves hang on.
They resemble pages torn from old telephone directories.
Names swallowed by the cold.

It is still beautiful to feel the heart beat
but often the shadow seems more real than the body.
The samurai looks insignificant
beside his armour of black dragon scales.


The Outpost 

I’m ordered out to a heap of stones
like a distinguished corpse from the Iron Age.
The others are back in the tent sleeping
stretched out like spokes in a wheel.

In the tent the stove rules: a big snake
that has swallowed a ball of fire and hisses.
But out in the spring night it is silent
among cold stones waiting for day.

Out in the cold I begin to fly
like a shaman, I fly to her body
with its white marks from her bikini -
we were out in the sun. The moss was warm.

I flit over warm moments
but can’t stop for long.
They’re whistling me back through space -
I crawl out from the stones. Here and now.

Mission: to be where I am.
Even in that ridiculous, deadly serious
role – I am the place
Where creation is working itself out.

Daybreak, the sparse tree trunks
are coloured now, the frostbitten
spring flowers form a silent search party
for someone who has vanished in the dark.

But to be where I am. And to wait.
I am anxious, stubborn, confused.
Coming events, they’re here already!
I know it. They’re outside:

a murmuring crowd outside the gate.
They can pass only one by one.
They want in. Why? They’re coming
one by one. I am the turnstile.