The Half-Finished Heaven
Selected Poems
Download image
ISBN10: 1555977839
ISBN13: 9781555977832
Paperback
154 Pages
$18.00
CA$24.00
The contemporary Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer has a prestigious worldwide reputation; many expect that he will someday win the Nobel Prize for Literature. Robert Bly, a longtime friend and confidant of Tranströmer's, as well as one of his first translators, has carefully chosen and translated the finest of Tranströmer's poems to create this cherished and invaluable collection.
Contents
Introduction: "Upward into the Depths" by Robert Bly
1
From
17 Poems (1954)
Secrets on the Road (1958)
The Half-Finished Heaven (1962)
Evening—Morning
Storm
The Man Awakened by a Song above His Roof
Track
Kyrie
After the Attack
Balakirev's Dream (1905)
The Couple
Allegro
Lamento
The Tree and the Sky
A Winter Night
Dark Shape Swimming
The Half-Finished Heaven
Nocturne
2
From
Resonance and Footprints (1966)
Night Vision (1970)
Open and Closed Space
From an African Diary
Morning Bird Songs
Summer Grass
About History
After a Death
Under Pressure
Slow Music
Out in the Open
Solitude
Breathing Space July
The Open Window
Preludes
The Bookcase
Outskirts
Going with the Current
Traffic
Night Duty
A Few Moments
The Name
Standing Up
3
From
Pathways (1973)
Truth Barriers (1978)
Elegy
The Scattered Congregation
Snow-Melting Time, '66
Further In
Late May
December Evening, '72
Seeing through the Ground
Guard Duty
Along the Lines (Far North)
At Funchal (Island of Madeira)
Calling Home
Citoyens
For Mats and Laila
After a Long Dry Spell
A Place in the Woods
Street Crossing
Below Freezing
Start of a Late Autumn Novel
From the Winter of 1947
The Clearing
Schubertiana
4
From
The Wild Market Square (1983)
For the Living and the Dead (1989)
Grief Gondola (1996)
From March '79
Fire Script
Black Postcards
Romanesque Arches
The Forgotten Commander
Vermeer
The Cuckoo
The Kingdom of Uncertainty
Three Stanzas
Two Cities
Island Life, 1860
April and Silence
Grief Gondola #2
Reviews
Praise for The Half-Finished Heaven
“The poems of Tomas Tranströmer are points of entry 'upward into / the depths' of an imagination, a spirit that is regeneratively inventive, capacious, unillusioned, undaunted, admirable . . . This extraordinary collection of work by one of Sweden's greatest contemporary poets presents a rich sampling of verse published during the past five decades.”—The New York Times Book Review
“The Half-Finished Heaven provides a wonderful respite for world-weary readers as well as a lovely introduction to the work of Nobel Prize winning poet Tomas Tranströmer. . . . Translator Robert Bly . . . masterfully renders Tranströmer’s work. . . . Tranströmer’s perspective is refreshing, the verbal equivalent of a brisk wind or a cold stream on a hot day.”—The Washington Post
"In this new updated version of his selected poems we find more than a dozen new translations from Tranströmer's strange and blue-ish work. To read these versions in 2017 is like seeing the after-image of a great work. They are eerie and beautiful and a little bit sad, like so much of Tranströmer's poetry. Heaven it seems will always be half-finished."—John Freeman, Literary Hub
