Selected Poems

by Lars Gustafsson, John Irons (Translator)

Overview

Poet, novelist, and philosopher Lars Gustafsson (1936-2016) was one of Europe’s leading literary figures. Much of his writing is concerned with the search for moral consciousness and the relationship between personal experience and self-awareness, imbued with a philosophically founded scepticism toward language. His poetry is renowned for relating the metaphysical to the mundane with a particular clarity and precision, illuminating the potency of ordinary objects and everyday events as he addresses critical issues that have concerned great thinkers over the centuries. Introduction by Per Wåstberg. Poetry Book Society Recommended Translation. Shortlisted for the Bernard Shaw Prize 2018 (for Translation from Swedish).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781852249977
Publisher:	Bloodaxe Books
Publication date:	11/12/2015
Pages:	175
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Lars Gustafsson (1936-2016) was one of Scandinavia’s best-known authors. Born in Västerås, Sweden, he published his first novel Vägvila: ett mysteriespel på prosa (Rest on the Way: A Mystery Play in Prose), at the age of 21. He was one of the most prolific Swedish writers since August Strindberg, he producing a voluminous flow of poetry, novels, short stories, critical essays and articles from the 1950 onwards, gaining international recognition with literary awards such as the Prix International Charles Veillon des Essais in 1983, the Heinrich Steffens Preis in 1986, Una Vita per la Litteratura in 1989, and a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship for poetry in 1994, as well as a Nobel nomination. His best-known novel – championed by John Updike – was The Death of a Beekeeper (1968). His last published novel was Dr Wassers Recept (Dr Wasser's Prescription, 2015). His Selected Poems – his first UK poetry publication – translated by John Irons, was published by Bloodaxe in 2015, and was a Poetry Book Society Recommended Translation and was shortlisted for the Bernard Shaw Prize 2018 for John Irons' translation from Swedish. Earlier English translations of his poetry published in the US included The Stillness of the World Before Bach (1988), Elegies and Other Poems (2000) from New Directions, and A Time in Xanadu (2008) from Copper Canyon. From 1983 he served as a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, where he taught Philosophy and Creative Writing, until retiring in 2006, and he held several visiting lectureships and residencies in Germany, where he was awarded the prestigious Thomas Mann Prize in 2015 for not just for his work but specifically for its influence on German culture. In his later years he was an outspoken figure in public debates over copyright and digitisation, and a strong supporter of the role of the internet in the dissemination of information, art and culture.

Table of Contents

Foreword Per Wästberg 11

1

Fire and air machine 23

Landscape with one asleep 24

The balloonist? 25

After rain 27

From a distant place 28

A boat from Murmansk 29

Episode 30

Conversation between philosophers 31

Happiness 32

The conditions 33

The dog 34

Picture 35

The bridges in Königsberg 36

A story from Russia (Metanovel) 37

Snow 38

Inscription on a stone 39

The machines 40

Discussions 42

Draft of a fantastic zoology 44

Bombus terrestris 46

C's monologue 48

Notes from the 1860s 50

The Wright brothers visit Kitty Hawk 51

Elegy 52

The living and the dead 53

Regarding the deepest sounds 54

2

Till Eulenspiegel's merry pranks I 56

Till Eulenspiegel's merry pranks II 57

Darkness 58

Concerning my relationship to music 59

Description of the Norberg quarry 60

Warm and cold spaces 61

Alba 62

3

XI (Sestina) 64

Sonnet XIV 65

Sonnet XVII 66

Sonnet XXIV 67

Sonnet XXVII 68

Sonnet XXVIII 69

4

Ballad of the dogs 72

Ballad on the paths in Västmanland 74

Elegy for a dead labrador 76

Song of the world's depths, the eye's depths, life's brevity 78

5

The silence of the world before Bach 82

The didapper 83

Poems from Africa 4 84

6

The eel and the well 87

Concerning everything that still hovers 88

Placenta 90

Winter in a Westphalian village 91

Old master 92

Austin, Texas 93

Elegy for the old Mexican woman and her dead child 96

Elegy for the outer boulevards 99

Elegy for lost and forgotten objects 100

Carl Fredrik Hill visits Lake Buchanan 103

7

Sörby elegy 107

When did people's mouths get wet? 109

Zones 110

Come tired body 111

Basilides' syllogism 112

Clocks 113

Audience with the Muse 114

The card 115

Berth 116

Aristotle and the crayfish 117

Variations on a theme by Silfverstolpe: 119

11 (Villanclle I) 119

16 (Villanelle II: An old barometer) 120

8

The small roads 123

All crazy small objects 124

How the winters once were 125

In-between days 127

Fichte by the kerosene lamp 128

Aunt Svea 129

A men's choir 130

The tired 132

Of course Superman is Clark Kent 133

Highly delayed, polemical attack on a Greek patriarch totally unprepared for such an eventuality 135

Traces 138

And die away like a storm wind in the desert 139

Minor gods 140

Letter from a joker 141

Lost property 142

Sleeping with a cat in the bed 143

Libraries are a kind of subway 144

Ramsberg's thumb 145

The girl 146

9

The hare 148

Events on the periphery of a summer day 150

On the richness of the inhabited worlds 151

Mörten bears his name with silence 152

The lamp 153

All iron longs to become rust 154

Varnish on an oar 155

Mirrorings and folds 156

From a hand-plane's recollections 157

The Christmas tree's visit 158

The prime numbers 159

Passing through dark regions 160

Through the looking glass 161

The meteorite at the Museum of Natural History 162

To the knowing 163

Trivial pieces of knowledge 164

Spring's joyous choir of birds 165

An early summer day at Björn Nilsson's grave 166

In a cosmic August night 168

Smoothness 169

American typewriter 170

Ramnäs railway community seen from the north 171

The logonaut 173

Biographical note 175