Wednesday, December 02, 2015

A Poem

A Poem
I read some poetry yesterday. Well, it was one poem. And it was rather short. But still. I noticed a flyer on a bulletin board at the Jordbro grave field. Translated to English it reads like this: Swim Towards A Kiss. Christofer Nöring. When I look out the window a girl walks past with her dog a bird flies off into the woods and a car drives over the manhole cover. www.litenupplaga.se/1471 The poet Christofer Nöring lives not far from here, in Västerhaninge. He only writes on typewriters, and even has a small collection of them. His latest book is called Simma mot en kyss and it was published earlier this year.

5 comments:

William Kendall said...

I'm not sure if it translates particularly well, though admittedly poetry has always baffled me.

Maria Russell said...

I'm sure it sounds beautiful in Swedish!
I was reading it and saw that fonstret rhymes with brunnslocket.
And there's where the "punch" is lost in translation...
Thanks for sharing this, Stefan. I love poetry!
#findingcomfortinpoetry

Lasse Jansson said...

Poesi på fyra rader uppsatt på en anslagstavla. En snabb glimt av en vardagsbetraktelse. Kanske av en person som har djup och perspektiv. Kanske av en person vars intryck och förmåga till eftertanke stannar vid en glimt ut från köksfönstret. Intressant!

VP said...

Always good to see some poetry around!

Christofer said...

Thanks to the photographer for a beautiful picture and thanks to you others for sharing your thoughts!
I really love the English translation. No, I don't agree that it loses any "punch" in translation - actually "fonstret" (the window) and "brunnslocket" (The manhole cover) don't rhyme with each other at all.
And of course, the book can still be purchased at www.litenupplaga.se/1471 :-)