NONFICTION

Bright Scythe: Selected Poems by Tomas Tranströmer

by Tomas Tranströmer
Sarabande. 2015. 240p. tr. from Swedish by Patty Crane. ISBN 9781941411216. $17.95; ebk. ISBN 9781941411223. POETRY
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In the introduction to this Selected from Nobel Prize-winning poet Tranströmer, translator Crane points to the poet's focus on liminality as a subject. Yet the poems in this collection, which has the original Swedish opposite the English translation, make reality itself liminal, as in the work of Charles Simic or Mark Strand—a skill present, if this book is any indication, throughout Tranströmer's career. Although his earlier poems appear more derivative, with serious marks of the Deep Image movement (though the poet was half a world away from the likes of W.S. Merwin and Charles Wright), the voice is consistent from 1954 to 2004. Things are said plainly—with lots of blacks and grays and darknesses—and reality slips in and out completely without magic.
VERDICT Overall, it is not whole poems, which at times are stilted, directionless, or overly somber, but lines that are revealed as this poet's lifelong strength (e.g., "The mailbox shines calmy, what is written cannot be taken back"). In the last half of the book, the poems settle, grow calm, and stray less into the unconscious as reverence takes over, rendering the reading experience quite ordinary.
Reviewed by Stephen Morrow, Hilliard, OH , Feb 01, 2016
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