Swedish Poet Tomas Tranströmer Awarded Nobel Prize

Tomas Tranströmer

The 2011 Nobel Prize for Literature went to Tomas Tranströmer, a Swedish poet who is credited as one of Sweden's most important post-World War II writers.  Below, courtesy of Bookforum (and via the publishers New Directions) are three poems selected from Tranströmer's The Great Enigma:

Translated by Robin Fulton

Two Cities

Each on its side of a strait, two cities
the one blacked out, occupied by the enemy.
In the other the lamps are burning.
The bright shore hypnotizes the dark one.

I swim out in a trance
on the glittering dark waters.
A dull tuba-blast penetrates.
It’s a friend’s voice, take up your grave and walk.

The Light Streams In

Outside the window, the long beast of spring
the transparent dragon of sunlight
rushes past like an endless
suburban train—we never got a glimpse of its head.

The shoreline villas shuffle sideways
they are proud as crabs.
The sun makes the statues blink.

The raging sea of fire out in space
is transformed to a caress.
The countdown has begun.

Night Journey

Thronging under us. The trains.
Hotel Astoria trembles.
A glass of water at the bedside
shines in the tunnels.

He dreamt he was a prisoner on Svalbard.
The planet turned rumbling.
Glittering eyes walked over the ice fields.
The beauty of miracles existed.