Tags
ATTENTION: dVerse LIVE will be on Saturday, March 16th from 10 to 11 AM EST/New York time. Watch OLN prompt on Thursday, March 14th for the link to join.
Today in Prosery I have chosen the Swedish Nobel Laureate Tomas Tranströmer. He was well known, and received the prize a few years before his death in 2015.
By Pia Nordlander / bildN – mynewsdesk, CC BY 3.0,
His poetry talks to me, especially in the way he captures the long winters of Scandinavia and his very good Metaphors.
In 1990 he was partly paralyzed and unable to speak after a stroke, but he continued to write, and became a celebrated renewer of haiku.
Most of his works have been translated to English.
One of his poems that especially talks to me, is one called “After someone’s death” (Efter någons död) which is filled with metaphors and images of nature. Selecting a line I wanted to avoid the most obvious and well-known lines and went for this:
all of the names swallowed up by the cold
Which I believe will be a versatile line to use in your prosery.
The challenge is:
Write a piece of prose of no more than 144 words (or if you want exactly 144 words) that includes the given line. You may change it with line breaks, punctuation but you have to keep the order of the words.
When you have written your prose on your blog, post it and refer back to dVerse. Link up to Mr Linky Below and engage in the discussion below, remember to have fun, read and comment.
dVerse 
Welcome to Prosery Monday, everyone!
On the menu we have buffalo wings and dry riesling, tuna steaks and castello monaci kreos rose, or if you prefer, we also have cranberry almond sweetheart scones with coffee/tea of your choice 🩷🩷
Let me know if I can get you anything else. Bjorn will join us shortly 🙂
Oh… If I would only be hungry… that sounds perfect-
Oh my goodness, the menu sounds enticing, Sanaa! I think just a scone and hot coffee, please.
How appropriate to have Bjorn hosting and providing the prompt today….may we all celebrate the recent announcement: Sweden is now in NATO!
I heard that in Biden’s State of the Union address.👏🏻
Cranberry almond sweetheart scones with hot coffee coming right up! Good to see you, Lillian! 🩷🩷
Yes, Sweden is now in NATO! 🥳🥳
Indeed… now we really are there.
Having read a few of the texts I just hope we can avoid building more war memorials…
Thank you, Björn, for the prompt, and Sanaa for hosting. I’m a bit off on time because of the switch, so I think I’ll just have a cup of coffee for now, and a glass of red wine later. 🙂
I will join you for some coffee, Merril! Happy Monday 🩷🩷
Yay! Happy Monday, Sanaa! 💙
Hello Bjorn and All. I’m on vacay from poeming for March, but you know I can’t resist Prosery. Great prompt line!
Thank you.. I thought it would be a little bit easier line this time.
Hello all, just came home and will check things a bit before heading off to bed.
The play was read today by the playwritght… it’s called Ruckus and was written and performed by Jenna Fincken… topic was domestic abuse.
hi Sanaa and Bjorn
hi poets
the tuna sounds good.
sorry I missed last week as I really enjoyed the quadrille form but I was paying the city of Liverpool a visit.
Tomas Transtromer is anew addition to my reading list.
will catch up reading as soon as I am able
rog
Nice to have you back Rog. good to have you here at Prosery… I think you will enjoy Tranströmer.
thanks always good to read a new addition to my list
Well, that’s passed a couple of hours on a cold bleak evening. With a log fire, a cup of tea and a prompt from Bjorn (or rather from Tomas), and some choristers singing a Lenten Compline service on BBC Radio 3… i haven’t even looked up what you are offering food and tipple wise, but maybe a stiff drink is needed in the telephone kiosk in my piece.
And the music has morphed into Schubert’s Winterreise, very appropriate… I think I need a cranberry almond sweetheart … please.
There is always a choice of stiff drinks available… snacks as well and of course readings.
An interesting prompt. Thanks for hosting Bjorn. Sanaa the food sounds wonderful. I love the way Thomas used the prompt line in his poem.
His poetry is excellent I think…
Yes, very thought provoking!
Thanks for introducing us to a Swedish poet laureate and offering a cool prompt. I blew into the pub after another windy March day!
Windy sounds like a great reason to be indoor and read.
For sure! On the trail…
Thanks for the introduction to a new poet. 🙂 Fascinating works and I’m curious, are you able to read the original poems, and if so, how are the translations? Do they do his words justice in terms of style, cadence, word choice, feeling, tone etc.?
For me he is not very new, he was always there in the background and I came across his poetry over and over, but it took a Nobel prize to realize that he was actually well-known internationally which meant that his translations were also very good.
That said you can never beat the original version, especially since some of his metaphors are so very much Swedish (like the sound of a ski through snow)
thanks for sharing your thoughts – and I just hadn’t thought of it – that the Nobel prize would suggest/mean good translations! (that’s such a “duh” moment for me – lol)
yes, I suspect that you’re quite right, some metaphors and images definitely resonate more in their maternal language …
Thank you for an interesting prompt line and introducing us to a new poet, Bjorn. I enjoyed reading his poem. 🙂
He is really an excellent poet, even when translated.
I’m very happy to join in this tribute to your Nobel writer.
Glad for that, I will head over and read-
I know some of Transtromer’s work, i came across him in a poetry podcast some time back, a worthy read but also such an interesting character, thank you for including him Bjorn.
I think he is well worth readings, and I find the translations really good.
Thanks for a great prompt! I wrote and posted during my lunch break, so perhaps just a cup of coffee to wake me up for the afternoon? And thank you so much for introducing me to a new (to me) poet.
A cup of coffee… for you here.