Tomas Transtromer, the 2011 Nobel Prize winner for Literature, is a poet of the interior. His descriptive verse is of scenes between people, between nature where the reality of the living being encompasses the setting with the latter enhancing the former.
Usually I hate the type of poet who only paints a picture of the scene using only the barest of words forcing the reader to meet him somewhere and giving off no meaning, only mood but Transtromer is able to transcend this. He shows us some truth, he can delve into the guts of a scene.
This type of poetry is a bit chilly but what do you expect of the Scandinavian mind? Knut Hamsun was considerably more human but he was one of a kind.
In the end, Transtromer’s Nobel prize win is good because it brings recognition to poetry an art form no longer in the public eye as much as others. Good for him and good for poetry!
You can read two of his most well know poems here AFTER A DEATH and THE COUPLE ….THE COUPLE in particular is striking in its comparison the time a couple have alone and how that is portrayed versus the “mob of people with blank faces” http://owlsmag.wordpress.com/2010/05/06/olives-transtromer/
No comments:
Post a Comment