Customer Reviews

Through Naked Branches

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Have you ever wondered what happens to small field animals during the winter? If so, you must read this book. Not only will you discover the answer to this question, but you will learn other things while you enjoy some completely unpretentious, beautiful poetry.

This book can best be described as a "total experience."

What do I mean by this?

Well, first, you will be able to read a very engaging and clearly written scholarly essay on Vesaas's poetry. Second, the poems are translated into Norwegian and that means you will learn a little about the way that language looks and feels. Third, you will read an appendix, which is a collage of Vesaas's life culled from various sources, but expressed in his own words.

He was born in 1897 on a farm. The collage describes various life experiences and situations in which Vesaas found himself. As you read the collage you will feel like you know him very well, and you will wish to know him better. And you will know him better, because you can read the rich poetry and discover more about his experience of his/our world.

An interesting aspect of this book is that the overall presentation and content is like a collage. Because its approximately 150 pages contain so many different ideas, so much information and so many lovely poems it can be read in any direction. By this I mean that you can read poems first, then the intro, then the collage. Alternatively, you can reverse this order, or you can flip from here to there reading bits and pieces from each section. Any direction in which you choose to read this book you will have a very enjoyable experience, because it is just plain GOOD.

Don't be scared because the poetry is translated into English from another language. The words flow as clearly as if they hadn't been translated at all.

Even the cover art is good.

A friend recommended this book to me, because he knows that I am an avid poetry reader and that I have spent many years studying Norwegian culture. I am a discriminating northernist who typically spends the short winter days reading long books. Of course, I had heard of the well known poet, Tarjei Vesaas, but because my Norwegian is rather rusty I needed to read it in translation. I was not aware until recently that Amazon carried such a good translation of his work.

This 200 page collection is quite fine. Some of the poetry is evocative of the rural north and its stillness. However, I will not try to explain the poetry, but will leave it to you to read translator Roger Greenwald's introductory essay which explains these poems with remarkable clarity.

I highly recommend this book.

I enjoyed Miss Haversham's review, but I must point out that you don't have to be a contortionist to enjoy this book!! She hit the nail on the head regarding the highlights of the book's content, but she did make a few errors that I cannot resist correcting. The paperback version of the book is almost 200 pages, not 150 pages. The poetry is translated from Norwegian into English and not the other way around.

I too enjoyed the poem entitled "The Small Rodents," but I was more impressed by such poems as "The Loon Heads North" and "The Horse." The poetry is mysterious, moving and quite varied in theme.

Bravo to Miss Haversham for reviewing this book first and pointing out its many interesting aspects!

the previous reviewers have not mentioned "From the Stoop." this poem is about dusk's arrival. it is one of many in the collection that refreshingly infuses a typical daily experience or event with a new and emphatic significance. in a sense, the reader must pause and remember to reconsider the dramatic effect of that which she sees every day in nature. "Rain in Hiroshima" on the other hand, describes an unnatural event which had, and continues to have, a huge impact on the world, which is very different than that of dusk's approach. however, the two poems are written with a similar wondering and melancholic intensity.

I would like to quote the poetry to show you the grace and power of the language, but I am not sure if that is permitted.

Many of the poems could be mentioned but one in particular seems worthy of note. "Outside the Wind Whispers" is the poem I have chosen to write about because I think it reveals an interesting aspect of Vesaas's poetry. Forgive my taking the liberty of quoting from page 35 of the paperback version of Through Naked Branches:

Inklings of the storm,

of the heavy trembling,

are surely what drive

us together.

Inklings of loneliness,

of a creeping frost,

an imminent fall,

a futile cry.--

[The formatting of the poetry might be lost. I have double spaced the lines hoping that they maintain the proper format. When I didn't double space them, they flowed together as one long line.]

This final stanza of "Outside the Wind Whispers" seems to me to describe the sensation of much of Vesaas's poetry. He often describes awesome and magnificent aspects of nature and contrasts these with a sensation of emptiness or spaciousness. He attributes human characteristics to nature and creates a feeling of humanity overwhelmed, or humanity buffeted by forces it cannot control.