When the Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer won the Nobel Prize for Literature, I wrote a post about it. Several Swedes, including Erik and his mother, had told me about Tranströmer, and I have a couple books of his poems in translation.
An obit by Bruce Weber in yesterday’s New York Times gave me a lot more information about “a body of work known for shrewd metaphors couched in deceptively spare language, crystalline descriptions of natural beauty and explorations of the mysteries of identity and creativity. …
“Though he was not especially well known among American readers, he was widely admired by English-speaking poets, including his friends Robert Bly, who translated many of his poems, and Seamus Heaney, himself a Nobel laureate in 1995.”
It seems Tranströmer also was a trained psychologist, who “worked in state institutions with juvenile offenders, parole violators and the disabled. …
“Mr. Tranströmer’s poetry production slowed after his stroke, but he took refuge in music, playing the piano with just his left hand. As a testament to his prominence in Sweden, several composers there wrote pieces for the left hand specifically for him.
“He was also an amateur entomologist. The Swedish National Museum presented an exhibition of his childhood insect collection, and a Swedish scientist who discovered a new species of beetle named it for him.”
Here is an excerpt from a poem the New York Times printed in the obit:
“I know I must get far away
“straight through the city and then
“further until it is time to go out
“and walk far into the forest.
“Walk in the footprints of the badger.”
Photo: Jonathan Nackstrand/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Tomas Tranströmer with his wife, Monica, after winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2011.
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