A Child Is Not a Knife : Selected Poems of Göran Sonnevi / Göran Sonnevi and Rika Lesser.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sonnevi, Göran, 1939- author.

Lesser, Rika, author.

Series:

The Lockert Library of Poetry in Translation Series

The Lockert Library of Poetry in Translation Series ; Volume 41

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American poetry.

Sonnevi, Go¨ran, 1939---Translations into English.

Sonnevi, Go¨ran.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (218 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Princeton, New Jersey : Princeton University Press, [1993]

Summary:

Göran Sonnevi is one of Sweden's most celebrated, respected, and prolific poets. For this first book-length selection of Sonnevi to appear in English, Rika Lesser has chosen works written between 1971 and 1989--although most of the poems come from the last decade and from Sonnevi's last three books, which form part of the single oändlig [unending/infinite/interminable] poem that he continues to write from book to book. Of Lesser's introduction to the work, Richard Howard writes, "Lesser's wonderful prose texts at the outset provide not only an ingress into complex and baffling matter but one of the most determined statements of the translator's text since Walter Benjamin."From "Åby, Öland; 1982"We are here in the ultimate lives of our bodiesnegations of the ultimate negationWe are complete parts of the worldWe rise up out of infinitylike the limestone flats from the sea Like the starsWe are denials of infinityOne day we shall reach all the way there

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

Göran Sonnevi: An Introduction

Bibliography

Sonnevi: A Translator's Retrospective Montage

Notes

Koster, 1973

I: For this reason alone we understand one another because we do not understand one another

Whose life? you asked

The hyacinth you

Dyron; 1981

Summer has turned now And I go

Seeing your smile

Mourning Cloak

Words have no limits

I said to you

II: Every word carries the whole universe

The twilight of spring rain

You say I'm naive

You, who say yes to

Demon colors

For S***, 1971

There is life that

You sense the light's fragrance

The wound bleeding

A Child Is Not a Knife

Breaking up: that large feeling

III. Every word also carries the whole of death

In the meadow by the shore

Incalculable: the heart

Death is no more

The narrow shaft

Fagerfjäll, Tjörn, 1986; For Pentti

Åby, Öland; 1982

what / do I find / then

From the cliff at the foot of Skull Mountain

New Year's 1986

The center of unheard-of, of enormous hopes

Burge, Öja; 1989

Swedish Contents and Bibliographical Citations

I. Bara därför förstår vi varann för att vi inte förstår varann

Vems liv? frågade du

hyacinthen jag

Sommaren har nu vänt Och jag går

Ser ditt leende, som om det

Sorgmantel

Orden har inga gränser, är alltså

Jag sa till dig

II: Varje ord bär på hela universum

Vårregnets skymning

Du säger att jag är en naiv människa

Du, som säger ja till

Demonfärger

Till S***, 1971

Det finns livet som

Du känner ljusets doft

Det alltid blödande

Ett barn är ingen kniv

Den stora kanslan av uppbrott

III. Varje ord bär också på hela döden

Såg på strandängen

Hjärtats oberäknelighet

Dödden firms inte mer

Det smala spjutet

Fagerfjall, Tjörn, 1986; Till Pentti

Vad

Från klippan vid Skallbergets fot

Nyåret 1986

De oerhörda förhoppningarnas

The Lockert Library of Poetry in Translation

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN:

9780691257754

0691257752

OCLC:

1381709268