Tomas Tranströmer, one of Sweden’s most important poets, has sold thousands of volumes in his native country, and his work has been translated into more than fifty languages. His books of poetry in English include The Sorrow Gondola (Green Integer, 2010); New Collected Poems (Bloodaxe Books, 2011); The Great Enigma: New Collected Poems (New Directions, 2003); The Half-Finished Heaven (2001); New Collected Poems (1997); For the Living and the Dead (1995); Baltics (1974); Paths (1973); Windows and Stones (1972), an International Poetry Forum selection and a runner-up for the National Book Award for translation; The Half-Finished Sky (1962); and Seventeen Poems (1954).
Poetry
Spring 2013
Conflict
From the Swedish. After a political argument or wrangle, I become lonesome. An empty chair opens out into the night sky. There is no way back. My friend leaves […]
Poetry
Spring 2013
C Major
From the Swedish. As he stepped out into the street after a meeting with her the snow whirled in the air. Winter had come while they were making love. […]
Poetry
Spring 2013
To Friends behind a Border
From the Swedish. I I wrote sparsely to you. But everything I couldn't say swelled up like some old-fashioned hot air balloon and disappeared finally in the night sky. […]
Poetry
Spring 2013
Walking Running Crawling
From the Swedish. Walk among fallen trees a year after the storm. Wing-sound. Torn-up roots turned toward heaven, stretching out like skis on someone jumping. Thirsty wasps hum […]
Poetry
Spring 2013
Sketch in October
From the Swedish. The tugboat is freckly with rust. What's it doing here, so far inland? It is a thick lamp, gone out in the cold. But the trees […]
Poetry
Summer 1991
April and Silence
From the Swedish. Spring lies desolate. The velvet-dark ditchcrawls by my side without reflections. The only thing that shinesis yellow flowers. I am carried in my shadowlike a violinin […]