A short selection of haunting, meditative poems from the winner of the
2011 Nobel Prize in Literature
Tomas Transtromer can be clearly recognized not just as Sweden's most
important poet, but as a writer of international stature whose work
speaks to us now with undiminished clarity and resonance. Long
celebrated as a master of the arresting, suggestive image, Transtromer
is a poet of the liminal: drawn again and again to thresholds of light
and of water, the boundaries between man and nature, wakefulness and
dream. A deeply spiritual but secular writer, his skepticism about
humanity is continually challenged by the implacable renewing power of
the natural world. His poems are epiphanies rooted in experience: spare,
luminous meditations that his extraordinary images split open--exposing
something sudden, mysterious, and unforgettable.