Selected Poems

Lars Gustafsson (1936-2016) was one of Scandinavia’s best-known authors. Born in Västerås, Sweden, he published his first novel Vägvila: ett mysteriespel på prosa (Rest on the Way: A Mystery Play in Prose), at the age of 21. He was one of the most prolific Swedish writers since August Strindberg, he producing a voluminous flow of poetry, novels, short stories, critical essays and articles from the 1950 onwards, gaining international recognition with literary awards such as the Prix International Charles Veillon des Essais in 1983, the Heinrich Steffens Preis in 1986, Una Vita per la Litteratura in 1989, and a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship for poetry in 1994, as well as a Nobel nomination. His best-known novel – championed by John Updike – was The Death of a Beekeeper (1968). His last published novel was Dr Wassers Recept (Dr Wasser's Prescription, 2015). His Selected Poems – his first UK poetry publication – translated by John Irons, was published by Bloodaxe in 2015, and was a Poetry Book Society Recommended Translation and was shortlisted for the Bernard Shaw Prize 2018 for John Irons' translation from Swedish. Earlier English translations of his poetry published in the US included The Stillness of the World Before Bach (1988), Elegies and Other Poems (2000) from New Directions, and A Time in Xanadu (2008) from Copper Canyon. From 1983 he served as a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, where he taught Philosophy and Creative Writing, until retiring in 2006, and he held several visiting lectureships and residencies in Germany, where he was awarded the prestigious Thomas Mann Prize in 2015 for not just for his work but specifically for its influence on German culture. In his later years he was an outspoken figure in public debates over copyright and digitisation, and a strong supporter of the role of the internet in the dissemination of information, art and culture.

I am amazed at his imaginativeness, empathy and extraordinary divining-rod... His poems, half violent movement, half fleeting shadow, are borne by the intention "to create out of experiences that have been made experiences that have not been made"... Lars Gustafsson's poetry is a song to what has been lost, to the faces that are glimpsed in train windows and never return. Cultures and epochs swirl round each other like leaves in an autumn gale and attain a balance, if not before then in the smithy of metaphors that the poet keeps heated.

• Fire and air machine Landscape with one asleep The balloonists After rain From a distant place A boat from Murmansk Episode Conversation between philosophers Happiness The conditions The dog Picture The bridges in Konigsberg A story from Russia (Metanovel) Snow Inscription on a stone The machines Discussions Draft of a fantastic zoology Bombus terrestris C's monologue Notes from the 1860s The Wright brothers visit Kitty Hawk Elegy The living and the dead Regarding the deepest sounds Till Eulenspiegel's merry pranks I Till Eulenspiegel's merry pranks II Darkness Concerning my relationship to music Description of the Norberg parish Warm rooms and cold Alba XI (Sestina) Sonnet XIV Sonnet XVII Sonnet XXIV Sonnet XXVII Sonnet XXVIII Ballad of the dogs Ballad on the paths in Vastmanland Elegy on a dead Labrador Song of the world's depths, the eye's depths, life's brevity The silence of the world before Bach The didapper Poems from Africa (4) The eel and the well Concerning everything that still hovers Placenta Winter in a Westphalian village Old master Austin, Texas Elegy on the old Mexican woman and her dead child Elegy on the outer boulevards Elegy on lost and forgotten objects Carl Fredrik Hill visits Lake Buchanan Sorby elegy When did people's mouths get wet? Zones Basilides' syllogism Clocks Audience with the muse The card Berth Aristotle and the crayfish 11 (Villanelle I) 16 (Villanelle II: An old barometer) The small roads All crazy small objects How the winters once were In-between days Fichte by the kerosene lamp Aunt Svea A men's choir The tired Of course Superman is Clark Kent Highly delayed, polemical attack Traces And die away Minor gods Letter from a joker Lost property Sleeping with a cat in the bed Libraries are a kind of subway Ramsberg's thumb The girl The hare Events on the periphery of a summer day On the richness of the inhabited worlds Life Roach The lamp All iron longs to become rust Varnish on an oar Mirrorings and folds From a plane's recollections The Christmas tree's visit The prime numbers Passing through dark regions Through the looking glass The meteorite at the Museum of Natural History To the knowing Trivial pieces of knowledge Spring's joyous choir of birds An early summer day at Bjorn Nilsson's grave In a cosmic August night Smoothness American typewriter Ramnas railway community seen from the north The logonaut