Anteckningar

Edmund Prestwich has reviewed my translation of Tua Forsström's Anteckningar. Among other things he writes:

Memories and images are presented in a way that’s both vivid and spare, with an emphasis on elemental or elementary natural phenomena that can be evoked in very few words... Each image or memory fragment shines both in its own light and in the shifting play of light from those around it. As the book proceeds, the focus of attention broadens to include more generalised meditations on love and loss, the beauty and fragility of life and our relations to the natural world, but Vanessa’s death remains at its heart.

Tua Forsström/Joan Margarit: Reading and discussion

I Walked On into the Forest

 

In November this year Bloodaxe will publish my translation of Tua Forsström's fifteenth collection Anteckningar (2018), with the English title I Walked On into the Forest - Poems for a Little Girl.

W.H. Auden

On learning and not forgetting

When they asked W.H. Auden if poetry can change

society he said no, can poetry change human nature, 

No said W.H. Auden. But then what can the poems

 do? Allow us to commune with the dead, said      

W.H. Auden, remind us to enjoy life a bit or at least

endure it a bit better, keep us company for a while. 

- Tua Forsström

translated from Finland-Swedish by David McDuff

Finland-Swedish Literature Today - Series

On the occasion of Tua Forsström's election to the Swedish Academy, Opulens has a series devoted to contemporary Finland-Swedish writing. Authors profiled so far include Tuva Korsström and Merete Mazzarella, and there are apparently more articles in the pipeline. Series editor Ivo Holmqvist has some wry historical notes on the Finland-Swedish presence in the Academy:

Så är det också skamligt länge sedan någon från Finland återfanns där. Den ombytlige Gustaf Mauritz Armfelt som var född i den östra rikshalvan blev invald på stol nr 14 i maj 1786. Åtta år senare uteslöts han, för påstådda politiska stämplingar. 1805 togs han åter in, fast på stol nr 17 som han tvangs lämna 1811 när han förvisats ur Sverige. Han är den ende som suttit på två stolar i den församlingen.

On the outlook for the newest Finland-Swedish member, Holmqvist is encouraging, though he can't  help pointing to some of the commentary that has greeted the latest appointment:

Dagens Nyheters kulturchef hör till dem som hälsat Tua Forsström välkommen fast han samtidigt undrade om hon är tillräckligt stridbar, och här på sidan noterade Helena Lie nyss att det är ”en ytterligt patriarkal hegemoni Forsström träder in i (motbevisa mig gärna, jag är idel öra) så frågan är väl hur länge Forsström kommer stå ut i ett sådant sällskap om det fortsätter som hittills.” Det är nog en onödigt pessimistisk blick in i framtiden även om föregångare som Kerstin Ekman, Lotta Lotass, Sara Danius och Sara Stridsberg satt exempel genom att frivilligt lämna församlingen.

Anteckningar

Tua Forsström has published her twelfth collection of poetry, Anteckningar, this time with Förlaget M and Bonniers. The book is in some sense a continuation of En kväll i oktober rodde jag ut på sjön (2013), though the new volume focuses more acutely on the theme of death, and the tone of the inner discourse has shifted imperceptibly towards a new and harsh gravity. "Tua Forsström is still one of Finland Sweden's most dynamic and vibrant poets," writes Svenska Yle's reviewer, and it would be hard to argue with that judgement. An English translation of the book should be forthcoming from Bloodaxe Books before too long - I'm presently working in that direction.

World Poets

Among the participants in Bloodaxe's new DVD anthology World Poets, which presents work by 30 poets together with films of interviews and readings featuring the poets themselves, are Pia Tafdrup and Tua Forsström. There are also poems by Tomas Tranströmer. While it's good to see Nordic poets included here, some of Pia Tafdrup's poems inexplicably appear in Swedish translation, rather than in the original Danish. There are also some glitches and typos in the Swedish texts. It would have been useful to see proofs before publication, but apparently Bloodaxe considered it O.K. to skip that step.

Two Collections

Here are links to the Amazon pages for the forthcoming Bloodaxe collections One Evening in October I Rowed out on the Lake by Tua Forsström and Salamander Sun and Other Poems by Pia Tafdrup, both in my translation. Both books are scheduled for publication on January 25, 2015.

One Evening in October

I'm working on a complete translation of Tua Forsström's collection En kväll i oktober rodde jag ut på sjön (One Evening in October I Rowed Out on the Lake, Schildts & Söderströms, 2012), to be published by Bloodaxe in a bilingual Swedish-English facing-text edition in early 2015.

Versions of some of the translations have already appeared in Books from Finland and Swedish Book Review.

Tua Forsström

Books from Finland magazine has published some of my translations of poems from Tua Forsström's new collection. There's also a short introductory essay by Michel Ekman, also in my translation.