Table of Contents

CONTENTS
FOREWORD BY DAVID WOJAHN

I. ETT URVAL DIKTER/SELECTED POEMS: 1954–1973
Stenarna 2
The Stones 3
Hemligheter på vägen 4
Secrets on the Way 5
Spår 6
Tracks 7
Kyrie 8
Kyrie 9
Balakirevs dröm 10
Balakirev’s Dream 12
Trädet och skyn 14
The Tree and the Sky 15
Ansikte mot ansikte 16
Face to Face 17
Lamento 18
Lament 19
Allegro 20
Allegro 21
Den halvfärdiga himlen 22
The Half-Finished Heaven 23
En vinternatt 24
A Winter Night 25
Vinterns formler 26
Winter’s Formulas 28
Under tryck 30
Under Pressure 31
Från snösmältningen –66 32
From the Snowmelt of ‘66 33
Skiss i ocktober 34
Sketch in October 35
Längre in 36
Further In 37
Sena maj 38
Late May 39

II. ÖSTERSJÖAR/BALTICS (1974) 41

III. ETT URVAL DIKTER/SELECTED POEMS: 1978–1983
Övergångsstället 68
The Crossing Place 69
Galleriet 70
The Gallery 75
Kort paus I orgelkonserten 80
Brief Pause in the Organ Recital 82
Från mars–79 84
From March of ‘79 85
Minnena ser mig 86
Memories Watch Me 87
Vinterns blick 88
Winter’s Glance 89
Stationen 90
The Station 91
Eldklotter 92
Fire Scribble 93

IV. FÖR LEVANDE OCH DÖDA/FOR THE LIVING AND THE DEAD (1989)
Den bortglömde kaptenen 95
The Forgotten Captain 97
Sex vintrar 99
Six Winters 101
Näktergalen i Badelunda 103
The Nightengale in Badelunda 104
Alkaiskt 105
Alcaic 106
Berceuse 107
Lullaby 108
Gator i Shanghai 109
Streets in Shanghai 111
Djupt i Europa 113
Deep in Europe 114
Flygblad 115
Leaflet 116
Inomhuset är oändligt 117
The Indoors is Infinite 120
Vermeer 123
Vermeer 125
Romanska bågar 127
Romanesque Arches 128
Epigram 129
Epigram 130
Kvinnoporträtt—1800-tal 131
Portrait of a Woman, 19th Century 132
Medeltida motiv 133
Medieval Motif 134
Air Mail 135
Air Mail 136
Madrigal 137
Madrigal 138
Guldstekel 139
Golden Vespid 141

V. SORGEGONDOLEN/THE SORROW GONDOLA (1996)
April och tystnad 144
April and Silence 145
Osäkerhetens rike 146
Insecurity’s Kingdom 147
Nattboksblad 148
Nightbook Page 149
Sorgegondol nr 2 150
Sorrow Gondola No. 2 153
Landskap med solar 156
Landscape with Suns 157
November i forna DDR 158
November in the Former GDR 160
Från juli 90 162
From July ’90 163
Göken 164
The Cuckoo 165
Tre strofer 166
Three Stanzas 167
Som att vara barn 168
Like Being a Child 169
Två städer 170
Two Cities 171
Ljuset stömmar in 172
The Light Streams In 173
Nattlig resa 174
Night Travel 175
Haikudikter 176
Haiku Poems 178
Från ön 1860 180
From the Island, 1860 181
Tystnad 182
Silence 183
Midvinter 184
Midwinter 185
En skiss från 1844 186
A Sketch from 1844 187

2004
Fasader 189
Facades 190

Afterword by Patty Crane

Promotional Information

$3500 marketing and publicity budget
Galleys available: national mailings with special push to publications to publications that have previously reviewed Transtromer
National advertising in Poetry, The Paris Review, and relevant literary blogs and websites
eBook available at same time as print publication, eBook ISBN to be included on all press materials and wherever print ISBN is listed. Author will promote both mediums through social media.
Internet marketing campaign to include announcement on Sarabande national listserv as well as review copy mailing to online journals and blogs

About the Author

Tomas Gösta Tranströmer: Tranströmer is a Swedish writer, poet and translator, whose poetry has been translated into over 60 languages. He's acclaimed as one of the most important European writers since World War II and was awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in Literature. He died March 26, 2015 at the age of 83.
Patty Crane: Patty Crane’s translations of Tomas Tranströmer’s poetry have appeared in American Poetry Review, Blackbird, New Ohio Review, Poetry Daily, Poetry East, and Smartish Pace. She spent three years living in the Stockholm area of Sweden, where she worked closely with Tranströmer and his wife, Monica.

Reviews

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice
A Los Angeles Times Fabulous Holiday Book


"Crane’s verse sounds good in English, and it comes with facing-page Swedish.... Her Tranströmer wants to be heard: “If I could at least get them to feel,” he writes, “that this trembling beneath us/ means we’re on a bridge.” Readers who know earlier versions, or who know Swedish, will want to contrast these versions with what they know; readers new to Tranströmer should bundle up and dive in."
—Publishers Weekly, starred review

"Immediate, bodily...vivid...full of intent and personality. To my ear, Crane has so far made the best English version of Tran­strömer....Tran­strömer’s poetry is concerned with precisely how little we’re able to really see, yet how much that little is worth. His is a tense, taut music, easier to hear in Crane’s slightly relaxed interpretation."
—The New York Times Book Review

“Reading this poem, a translation from its original Swedish, I was reminded of that childhood wonder and felt again the heft of so many truths waiting to be known.”
—Natasha Trethewey, New York Times Magazine

"Sometimes a new piece of shared cultural heritage seems to click into place; the appearance of Bright Scythe—selected poems by Swedish Nobel laureate Tomas Tranströmer, translated by Patty Crane—feels like such an occasion. These poems are adamantly delicate parcels of offhand eternity, dwelling in a space few have inhabited usefully in any sustained way….If, as Borges says, “poetry springs from something deeper,” then these poems are leaded windows and fine-hewn doors ajar into that fathoming—rendered in “glass-clear” translations—and a lasting tribute to the poet’s passing earlier this year. "
—World Literature Today

"Quietly revelatory...Between his own words and Crane’s warm remembrances of her time with the Tranströmers, this book acts as a kind of shadow biography of the poet. It’s a haunting, mysterious, but ultimately warm and humanistic work, and a welcome introduction both to Tranströmer’s poetry and in the debates over how best to translate it into another tongue."
—Biographile

"Patty [Crane]'s book has such transparency and illumination and candor.... For me, this is the finest translation since Bly's."
—Teju Cole

"For those of you who missed out on the Nobel Prize-winning poet Tranströmer, who died last year, Bright Scythe—with its lively translation by Patty Crane (who worked with the poet)—is the place to start."
—Flavorwire, "Ten Must-Read Books for November 2015"

"Bright Scythe, a collection of [Tranströmer's] work newly translated from the Swedish by Patty Crane, is a literary panorama with work from 1954 to 2004, and deftly traces the poet’s quiet interrogation with life’s phenomena.... Crane, whose work presents the original jagged Swedish on the opposite page of her translations, stays close to the source. She measures with finesse each syllable and simile."
—Electric Literature

"Bright Scythe is an invaluable contribution to our understanding of Tranströmer’s concise and penetrating body of work."
—The Cafe Review

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice
A Los Angeles Times Fabulous Holiday Book


"Crane’s verse sounds good in English, and it comes with facing-page Swedish.... Her Tranströmer wants to be heard: “If I could at least get them to feel,” he writes, “that this trembling beneath us/ means we’re on a bridge.” Readers who know earlier versions, or who know Swedish, will want to contrast these versions with what they know; readers new to Tranströmer should bundle up and dive in."
—Publishers Weekly, starred review

"Immediate, bodily...vivid...full of intent and personality. To my ear, Crane has so far made the best English version of Tran­strömer....Tran­strömer’s poetry is concerned with precisely how little we’re able to really see, yet how much that little is worth. His is a tense, taut music, easier to hear in Crane’s slightly relaxed interpretation."
—The New York Times Book Review

“Reading this poem, a translation from its original Swedish, I was reminded of that childhood wonder and felt again the heft of so many truths waiting to be known.”
—Natasha Trethewey, New York Times Magazine

"Sometimes a new piece of shared cultural heritage seems to click into place; the appearance of Bright Scythe—selected poems by Swedish Nobel laureate Tomas Tranströmer, translated by Patty Crane—feels like such an occasion. These poems are adamantly delicate parcels of offhand eternity, dwelling in a space few have inhabited usefully in any sustained way….If, as Borges says, “poetry springs from something deeper,” then these poems are leaded windows and fine-hewn doors ajar into that fathoming—rendered in “glass-clear” translations—and a lasting tribute to the poet’s passing earlier this year. "
—World Literature Today

"Quietly revelatory...Between his own words and Crane’s warm remembrances of her time with the Tranströmers, this book acts as a kind of shadow biography of the poet. It’s a haunting, mysterious, but ultimately warm and humanistic work, and a welcome introduction both to Tranströmer’s poetry and in the debates over how best to translate it into another tongue."
—Biographile

"Patty [Crane]'s book has such transparency and illumination and candor.... For me, this is the finest translation since Bly's."
—Teju Cole

"For those of you who missed out on the Nobel Prize-winning poet Tranströmer, who died last year, Bright Scythe—with its lively translation by Patty Crane (who worked with the poet)—is the place to start."
—Flavorwire, "Ten Must-Read Books for November 2015"

"Bright Scythe, a collection of [Tranströmer's] work newly translated from the Swedish by Patty Crane, is a literary panorama with work from 1954 to 2004, and deftly traces the poet’s quiet interrogation with life’s phenomena.... Crane, whose work presents the original jagged Swedish on the opposite page of her translations, stays close to the source. She measures with finesse each syllable and simile."
—Electric Literature

"Bright Scythe is an invaluable contribution to our understanding of Tranströmer’s concise and penetrating body of work."
—The Cafe Review