Tomas Tranströmer (1931–2015)

Tomas Tranströmer, vincitore del Nobel per la letteratura nel 2011, era uno dei maggiori poeti contemporanei. Non avevo mai letto niente di suo e ho pensato di iniziare da questa piccola autobiografia, che forse sarebbe più corretto definire raccolta di eventi salienti della vita di Tranströmer capaci di influenzare successivamente la sua poetica.

I ricordi mi guardano, infatti, contiene otto episodi della vita di Tranströmer, dall'infanzia al liceo, che il poeta reputava fondamentali sia per la sua formazione di uomo sia per quella del suo io poeta. Il libriccino (meno di cento pagine) è correlato di alcune foto e mi ha fatto nascere una discreta curiosità di conoscere il Tranströmer poeta.

Ogni episodio è in prosa, ma non si fa fatica a cogliere il poeta: Tranströmer, infatti, racconta di sé con l'essenzialità del verso che in poche parole è capace di spalancare le porte della mente per portarci laddove l'autore vuole – o anche no, perché mai mettere limiti ai luoghi nei quali un componimento potrebbe portarci.

Sono molto contenta di aver “incontrato” questo autore a partire dalla sua autobiografia: ho avuto l'impressione che nel suo caso l'elemento biografico sia determinante (anche se, naturalmente, potremmo dirlo di qualunque autore). Mi sentire sicuramente riparlare di Tranströmer.… (plus d'informations)

This is a small selection from Tranströmer's lyric verse, in translations selected by editor Daniel Halpern from among the numerous English versions available, sandwiching the poet's childhood memoir "Memories look at me".

I enjoyed the memoir, where Tranströmer writes about growing up in Stockholm before and during World War II and going to the Södra Latin Grammar School (which featured in an Ingmar Bergman film). But it was difficult to get a grasp of the poems, possibly because of the profusion of different translators involved.

One or two appealed to me at first reading — "Grief Gondola No.2", for instance, a poem about Liszt and Wagner in Venice (but it's weird seeing the title of Liszt's piece translated into English when it's normally left in Italian); "Motifs from the Middle Ages"; and the "Vermeer" poem that ends the selection. Others left me baffled with their incongruous or surreal images and leaps of subject. Perhaps he's a poet you need to read in the original, but I didn't really see anything in this selection that would have made me go out and learn a bit more Swedish. At best it seemed good, but not earth-shattering.… (plus d'informations)

Tomas Tranströmer was born in Stockholm and raised by his mother after his parents divorced when he was very young. He loved nature, especially entomology, as a child, although his interests were varied. His grandfather indulged his passion for trains, and he filled sketchpads with drawings of things that interested him. He attended Södra Latin Grammar School, made famous in Ingmar Bergman's first film Hets/Torment. This small book of sketches from his childhood gives a glimpse both of a child's life in Stockholm in the 1930s and 40s, but also a sense of the poet's beginnings.

What we live through in school is projected as an image of society. My total experience of school was mixed, with more darkness than light—just as my image of society has become.

We always feel younger than we are. I carry inside myself my earlier faces, as a tree contains it's rings. The sum of them is "me."… (plus d'informations)