I’m probably more excited about this Nobel Prize pick than EVER BEFORE. Seriously, Tranströmer kicks ass. I still remember the first time I came across one of his poems—I can’t remember what journal it was in—and how blown away I was by the way he could make very simple images seem terrifying and gorgeous all at once.
Here’s Robert Bly’s translation of Tranströmer’s poem “After a Death”:
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.
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