swedish poet tomas transtromer wins the nobel prize

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/07/arts/swedish-poet-wins-nobel-prize-for-literature.html?pagewanted=all

Tomas Tranströmer, the Swedish poet whose sometimes bleak but powerful work explores themes of nature, isolation and identity, won the 2011 Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday.
Announcing the award in Stockholm, the Swedish Academy praised Mr. Tranströmer, saying that “through his condensed, translucent images, he gives us fresh access to reality.”

The assembled press broke out in loud cheers at the news that Mr. Transtrõmer, who was born in Stockholm, had won the prize.

Mr. Tranströmer, 80, has written more than 15 collections of poetry, many of which have been translated into English and 60 other languages.

Neil Astley, the editor of Bloodaxe Books in Britain, called Mr. Tranströmer “a metaphysical visionary poet.”

“His poetry is both universal and particular,” Mr. Astley said. “It’s complex but very direct at the same time. He’s worked for much of his life as a psychologist, and the work is characterized by very strong psychological insight into humanity.”

tbh i am always a little disappointed when they give the prize to someone who wont piss off harold bloom

At last!

Transtromer! Poet in disguise!

Totally read this as Tuomas Transformer.

LOL @ NV

http://www.ohgizmo.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/thomas-the-transformer.jpg

Sorry to derail thread with on-topic etc, but this awardation was fucking *righteous & correct* all the way. Äntligen! (yes I know that paricular meme is tired)

I don't know anything about this guy but there's a Swedish poet named Gunnar Ekelof who I will rep for

Weirdest f'ing thing about this dude. Had a stroke 1990.paralysed right side,aphasia means he can't speak. Wrote a poem in 1970s predicting said stroke and right side paralysis/aphasia.

(Teh Eighteen have been scared for DECADES abt awarding it to a Nordic person, not to mention a Swede, because they overdid it in the, oh, first about seven decades of C20...)

aerosmith any ekelöf you'd recommend in particular?

as usual, the prize didn't go to the one with most of the bets (Adonis, this year)

(asking bcz I'm shamefully clueless abt poetry etc in what is in effect a dialect of my own language!)

(Tomas T: a couple of years ago, a couple of friends (independently) waved their arms about and mouthed panegyrics. It worked.)

The bus crawls through the winter evening.
It glimmers like a ship in the spruce forest
where the road is a narrow deep dead canal.

real scando stuff

Hah! nostormo: just lay Dylan every year. Draws many many $$$$s in bets, but so not gonna happen. (And if it does, I'm gonna do a pilgrimage to Stockholm JUST to thumb my nose at Teh Eighteen). Maybe he deserves it, maybe not, but he has no business taking it I feel. No offense to Bob etc.

The bus crawls through the heated evening.
It glimmers like a ship in the sick forest
where the road is a narrow deep dead canal.

real tropic stuff

When I heard about this I seriously thought he had already won this years ago.

rumor has it that one of the academy members is a huge Dylan fan, thats it

xxpost

rumor has it that guy will die disappointed :-p
Again, no offense etc etc

it doesnt really matter though: lots of classic writers didn't and wont win the noble, so what does this prize mean anyway?!

it's mostly there to piss off americans

and give the national review something to complain about

maybe if Phillip Roth will win they will stop? lol

elmore leonard, maybe

ok I believe I havent done drunken uncalledfor poetry semiliteral stunt translation since some Christian Morgenstern stuff about 2004 (search "anadyomene" if you need to point and laugh).... please don't take it out on Tomas T if it doesn't work for you etc...

--------
Decemberkväll -72

Her 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 andre är nu, nu, nu. Tyngdlagen som pressar oss
mot arbetet om dagen och mot sänget om natten. Kriget.

--------
December Night '72

Here I come the invisible man, maybe employed
by a great Memory, to live right now. And I drive past

the shuttered-up white church – in which is a great icon of wood
smiling, helpless, as if one had taken his glasses away.

He is lonely. All those other things are now, now, now. The gravity pressing us
to work all day and to bed all night. The war.

feel like ascribing broader meaning than "a prize bestowed by a committee that assigns great weight to its choice" has always been silly - it's like, yes it has meaning: these people take the prize seriously, they don't just hand it out to their friends. the idea that it's some objective scale of importance isn't implied by anybody on the committee, it's just asserted mainly by people who then want to deny the validity of the claim

Nittonhundraåttio

Hans blick flyttar sig ryckvis över tidningssidan
Då kommer känslor så frusna att de tas för tankar.
Bara i djup hypnos kunde han bli sitt andra jag,
sin dolda syster, kvinnan som går med de hundratusen
skriande "Död åt schahen!" – fast han redan är död –
ett marscherande svart tält, from och full av hat.
Jihad! Två som aldrig ska mötas tar hand om världen.

-------
Nineteen hundred and eighty

His gaze moves stepwise over the newspaper.
Then feelings come so frozen they are taken for thoughts.
Only in deep hypnosis he could he become his other I,
his hidden sister, the woman who walks with the hundreds of thousands
screaming "Death to the Shah!" – although he's already dead –
a marching black tent, pious and full of hate.
Jihad! Two that never shall meet take hand of the world.

Hemåt

Ett telefonsamtal rann ut i natten och glittrade på landsbygden och i förstäderna.
Efteråt sov jag oroligt i hotellsängen.
Jag liknade nålen i en kompass som orienteringslöparen bär genom skogen med bultande hjärta.

---------------
Homewards
A phone call ran out in the night and glittered in the village and the suburbs.
Afterwards, I slept uneasily in the hotel bed.
I was like the compass needle the orienteerer carries through the woods with beating heart.

Allegro

Jag spelar Haydn efter en svart dag
och känner en enkel värme i händerna.

Tangenterna vill. Milda hammare slår.
Klangen är grön, livlig och stilla.

Klangen säger att friheten finns
och att någon inte ger kejsarens skatt.

Jag kör ner händerna i mina haydnfickor
och härmar en som ser lugnt på världen.

Jag hissar haydnflaggan – det betyder:
"Vi ger oss inte. Men vill fred."

Musiken är et glashus på sluttningen
där stenarna flyger, stenarna rullar.

Och stenarna rullar tvärs igenom
men varje ruta förblir hel.

----------------
Allegro

I play Haydn after a black day
and feel a simple warmth in my hands.

The keys are willing. Mild hammers beat.
The sound is green, lively and soft.

The sound says freedom does exist
and that someone doesn't give the Emperor his due.

I drive my hands into my haydnpockets
pretending I am calm about the world.

I hoist the haydnflag – it means:
"We won't give up. But we want peace."

The music is a glasshouse at the end --
where stones fly, and where stones roll.

The stones will roll right through it;
But every windowpane will remain whole.

Anatol! Thanks! <3

Read some moving stories about how he can't speak and write anymore since a stroke in the 90s, but communicates with his left hand playing piano! He's 'in-sync' with his wife through that, he 'tells' her things by playing the piano with one hand. <3

Thanks anatol for posting some choices.

Really like the Nobel for not being so obvious, convined Adonis wd have won this.

yeah, seeing him and his wife greeting the press in their apartment was quite touching. he can still speak a little though even if his wife seems to know exactly what he means and translates for him.

thx anatol

yeah these are beautiful poems, thanks anatol.

Then feelings come so frozen they are taken for thoughts.

so OTM, such a line.

Thx for thx -- of course I'd recommend checking out some *proper* translations! :-P

Agreed dayo, that line made me stop and stare out the window a bit.

Robert Bly translated his poems in this collection.

Great job, a_m!

thanks, anatol, those were lovely.