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The Half-Finished Heaven: The Best Poems of Tomas Tranströmer
 
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The Half-Finished Heaven: The Best Poems of Tomas Tranströmer [Paperback]

Tomas Tranströmer (Author), Robert Bly (Author)
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)

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Book Description

October 1, 2001
From the Winner of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Literature
 
The contemporary Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer is a recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature and has a prestigious worldwide reputation. 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
s26Preludes
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

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The Half-Finished Heaven: The Best Poems of Tomas Tranströmer + The Great Enigma: New Collected Poems + Tomas Transtromer: Selected Poems, 1954-1986
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Mystical, versatile and sad, the poems (in verse and prose) of Tomas Transtromer have made him Sweden's best-known living writer. Robert Bly (Eating the Honey of Words, etc.) has long championed Transtr”mer; his latest effort in this line is The Half-Finished Heaven: The Best Poems of Tomas Transtr”mer. Here are the dream and nightmare images that influenced U.S. poetry in the '60s, where "Moths settle down on the pane:/ small pale telegrams from the world." Here, too, are the brief, haunting works of more recent years: "I am carried inside/ my own shadow like a violin/ in its black case."

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Review

"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

Product Details

  • Paperback: 122 pages
  • Publisher: Graywolf Press (October 1, 2001)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1555973515
  • ISBN-13: 978-1555973513
  • Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.4 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #25,074 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Tomas Tranströmer, 2011 recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature, was born in Stockholm in 1931. He has written thirteen books of poems and is the recipient of such honors as the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, the Bonnier Award for Poetry, Germany's Petrarch Prize, the Bellman Prize, and the Swedish Academy's Nordic Prize. His poetry has been translated into over sixty languages. He lives in Stockholm with his wife Monica.

 

Customer Reviews

4 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
5.0 out of 5 stars (4 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Great intro to major poet, December 28, 2007
By 
E. D. Hensley (Grass Valley, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
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This review is from: The Half-Finished Heaven: The Best Poems of Tomas Tranströmer (Paperback)
I knew little of Transtromer's work and nothing about him. Bly's translations are the best way to enter Mr. T's world, I think. I now have other translations. In some cases, 2 others of a poem for comparison. I do not know Swedish at all, although I would like to look at it sometime--but none of the books I have is bilingual. I don't miss it here. I can tell that Bly translates as he has elsewhere: he reads and receives the original poem and then writes a poem-to-poem translation, rather than word-for-word. I've found other parts that I prefer or find a bit more interesting in other translations, but for overall poem-ness and poetic satisfaction, I don't think Bly's can be beat. You know you're reading poetry, not simply translation. For those who'd like to compare and don't mind some overlap, I'd recommend Robin Fulton's collected poems The Great Enigma: New Collected Poems and Robert Hass's selected poems Tomas Transtromer: Selected Poems, 1954-1986. In some cases, you'll get 3 translations for triangulation. For me, I'm seeking out more of Bly's translations, many of which are out of print.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Thanks to the Nobel Prize committee, November 5, 2011
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Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The Half-Finished Heaven: The Best Poems of Tomas Tranströmer (Paperback)
Like most aging ex-English majors/literati caught up in just trying to stay afloat in this crazy economy, its hard enough to find the time to read much less stay abreast with the world of great literature. I heard about this Swedish poet who recently won the Nobel on NPR's "All Things Considered." Curious, I did an online search. The first poem (happened to be the one this collection is named for) and I was hooked. I have two volumes now, this one being my favorite. In these frantic, digitized, vampiric times, Transtromer's poems are an oasis of green pastures and still waters. And even though they are, in the words of English translator Robert Bly's excellent introduction to this volume, "mysterious because the images have traveled a long way to get here" they remain, at least I found them, curiously accessible. If you aren't into poetry (we should all make ourselves dabble at least as a intellectual and spiritual discipline) this book is worth giving a try. Put it by your bedside and, after prayers or even along with them, read one every night before turning off the light. (BTW, I am a Christian who takes Jesus, the Bible, the Church and my faith very seriously. I am not precisely sure where Transtromer is coming from in relation to spiritual matters, but his is at least, to paraphrase O'Connor, a very Christ and Holy Spirit-haunted world.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Magical, November 3, 2011
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This review is from: The Half-Finished Heaven: The Best Poems of Tomas Tranströmer (Paperback)
I bought this collection of poems recently after Transtromer was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Beautiful poems! The characters in his poems are so realistic and at the same time it feels like you are entering a dream.
As Transtromer says himself:"So much that can neither be written nor kept inside!"
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