[New-Poetry] Transtromer

[Bob Grumman]

What have you read by Transtromer, Bob?

  What makes him not just another mainstreamer, David?  Whether he is or not has nothing to do with whether or not I've read anything by him.  In fact, simply the fact that you think he's a superior poet makes it impossible for him NOT to be just another mainstreamer.  Like Heaney.  But I would make that, "just another quite good mainstreamer."

  I would add that I think it possible that the best American or Americanized (by translation) poet might be a mainstream.  But he'd have to be a mainstreamer doing more than the other good mainstreamers, or writing consistently at some higher level.  Wilbur would be in the running.  He does not seem to me just another mainstreamer.

  To answer your question, I've only read the sample poem you submitted, and a few other translations that have shown up on the web.  If I were doing a critique of his work, I'd read a few more, probably.  The opinion I advanced was not intended as some kind of final judgement, just an offhand opinion.

  --Bob G.
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