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

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Princeton University Press eBook-Package Archive 1927-1999
• VerfasserIn: Sonnevi, Göran,
• HerausgeberIn: Lesser, Rika,
• Place / Publishing House: Princeton, NJ : : Princeton University Press, , [2023]; ©1993
• Year of Publication: 2023
• Language: English
• Series: The Lockert Library of Poetry in Translation ; 41
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (218 p.)

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

Table of 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 -- Notes -- Swedish Contents and Bibliographical Citations -- Koster, 1973 -- I. Bara därför förstår vi varann för att vi inte förstår varann -- Vems liv? frågade du -- hyacinthen jag -- Dyron; 1981 -- 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 -- Åby, Öland; 1982 -- Vad -- Från klippan vid Skallbergets fot -- Nyåret 1986 -- De oerhörda förhoppningarnas -- Burge, Öja; 1989 -- The Lockert Library of Poetry in Translation