Tuesday, April 24, 2007

The Great Enigma - Transtromer


The title of Transtromer's new Collected poems comes from the last line of the last poem of the book. A haiku that goes like this:


Birds in human shape.
The apple trees in blossom.
The great enigma.
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2 comments:

RJGibson said...

Keith--this poem has been working around the edges of my mind since I first read the post. It's fascinating.

I remember hearing in a workshop (this had to be in '98/'99) that Transtromer had suffered a stroke. We ventured off into specualtion of what that must be like for a psychiatrist and poet if he suffered aphasia.

That's all sidereal I guess. It's a haunting poem for me. And that ties to the memory.

This reinforces my desire to get my hands on that book.

April 29, 2007 at 2:04 PM
Keith said...

Of the haiku, it really stands out. (I will keep my opinion to myself about that last line, though.)

Reinforcing Desires would be a fun Blog name. Not sure what the Blog's premise would be?

BTW: that pic on your site? those are clearly barfed up cottage cheese curds - that probably went down as large curd, came up small.

April 30, 2007 at 9:44 AM

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