Tranströmer Wins the Nobel

7 Comments

  1. Joseph Hutchison
    Joseph Hutchison October 10, 2011 at 2:55 pm .

    Good, Lyle! It's helpful for academics like Jonathan to hear from poets on this subject.

  2. Lyle Daggett
    Lyle Daggett October 9, 2011 at 4:10 am .

    Joseph, I followed the link to Jonathan Mayhew's post (in your comment above), and added my own two cents to the comment string there. Thanks for posting the link here.

  3. Joseph Hutchison
    Joseph Hutchison October 8, 2011 at 10:44 pm .

    I don't think much of it. Especially in context. He was reacting, I think, to the selection of Doris Lessing for the prize. In what universe is Doris Lessing politically correct? Not that I'm wild about her writing, which has always seemed prolix and faux visionary to me. But nobody can accuse her of not going her own way, and I admire that in a writer. Bloom does, too—so I'm baffled

  4. Conrad DiDiodato
    Conrad DiDiodato October 8, 2011 at 3:21 pm .

    Joseph,<br /><br />what do you make of Harold Bloom&#39;s claim that the Nobel is a form of political correctness?

  5. Joseph Hutchison
    Joseph Hutchison October 8, 2011 at 2:59 pm .

    Surely part of the function of Nobels is to introduce us to writers unknown to us. No surprise that not every writer will be to our taste—hence the carping going on over Tranströmer. One <a href="http://jonathanmayhew.blogspot.com/2011/10/nobel-goes-to.html&quot; rel="nofollow">blogger I follow</a>, Jonathan Mayhew, complained that Tranströmer isn&#39;t &quot;relevant,&quot; by which he means &quot;

  6. Lyle Daggett
    Lyle Daggett October 8, 2011 at 1:43 am .

    I also have loved Transtromer&#39;s poems for many many years — I first read him in Bly&#39;s selection in <i>Friends, You Drank Some Darkness</i> after the book came out in 1975. I concur with your comments about the great inwardness and inner life in his poems.<br /><br />That great line of his about the white walls of the church surrounding the congregation &quot;like a cast on the broken arm

  7. Conrad DiDiodato
    Conrad DiDiodato October 6, 2011 at 3:14 pm .

    An excellent pick!<br /><br />I&#39;ve only recently come to know Tranströmer in translation, and he delights and enlightens at the same time. Great work.

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