I've been reading poet Tomas Transtromer's
The Great Enigma: New Collected Poems.. (yep, on the Kindle) And I'm finding such pleasure in this reading that I can't begin to convey it. Last night I told some colleagues that I think Transtromer's work is brilliant, and when they pressed me to explained (certainly justifiable), I had nothing to say that felt as though it could begin to get at the sheer quality of Transtromer's work.
I'm trying to get through the whole collection at once...so that the stuff of it gets into my bones and blood. This means, for the most part, that I can't distinguish one poem from another. Next, I'll go back and re-read particular poems, study their architecture...if that's possible.
Here's a Transtromer poem from the
Academy of American poets:
| After a Death | |
by Tomas Tranströmer
translated by Robert Bly |
|
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 hear the heart beat
but often the shadow seems more real than the body.
The samurai looks insignificant
beside his armor of black dragon scales. |