Finalist for the 2010 PENLiterary Awards in the Poetry in Translation category given by the PENAmerican Center
Selected for Honorable Mention, The Best of 2009: Bookseller's Choice by Peter Philbrook,
Barnes & Noble ReviewA massive poem that breaks almost every poetic convention. . . .The poem lures us, step by step, to suffer, to care, to mourn, and to live in an enlarged state of awareness. So large, finally, that it brings microcosm together with macrocosm, and brokenness together with wholeness, in a visionary ending that does not really end. . . . In this majestic, original, and painful poem, Goran Sonnevi has released a new form of fertility into the world.Rosanna Warren, from the Foreword
Goran Sonnevi is one of the most unique and most accomplished poets writing anywhere in the world.There is no one like him in terms of the scope, the magnificence of his ambition for his work, and few come close to what he can technically manageBrilliantly translated, Rika Lessers verse in English is supple and capacious.C.K. Williams
Goran Sonnevi tries in this book something thats impossible and breathtaking: a poetic synthesis wherein our knowledge and emotions should merge. . . A synthesis is not possible but what were given here is a wonderful meditation on the world of pain and beauty, of politics and music, nature and human relationships. A fantastic poem and fantastically translated by Rika Lesser! Adam Zagajewski
Just what we need, another poem that can never stop being read, only entered, continued, lived. . . Lesser (what a name for the translator of the latest wisdom literature to hit the fan!) had to hear Sonnevis voice before she could (or would) do the work. In other words, loved the poem.And that is why we may read it, not well but as well: to hear the voice, in English now: entered, continued, lived. . . Yes, just what we need.Richard Howard
This ambitious, sprawling book-length poem from one of Swedens leading lights aspires to consider almost everything. . . .Sonnevis sentences sound admirably idiomatic in Lessers rendering.
Publishers Weekly * Publishers Weekly *
Finalist for the 2010 PENLiterary Awards in the Poetry in Translation category given by the PENAmerican Center -- PEN Literary Awards in Poetry in Translation * PEN American Center *
A massive poem that breaks almost every poetic convention. . . .The poem lures us, step by step, to suffer, to care, to mourn, and to live in an enlarged state of awareness. So large, finally, that it brings microcosm together with macrocosm, and brokenness together with wholeness, in a visionary ending that does not really end. . . . In this majestic, original, and painful poem, Goran Sonnevi has released a new form of fertility into the world.Rosanna Warren, from the Foreword
-- Rosanna Warren
Goran Sonnevi is one of the most unique and most accomplished poets writing anywhere in the world.There is no one like him in terms of the scope, the magnificence of his ambition for his work, and few come close to what he can technically manageBrilliantly translated, Rika Lessers verse in English is supple and capacious.C.K. Williams
-- C.K. Williams
Goran Sonnevi tries in this book something thats impossible and breathtaking: a poetic synthesis wherein our knowledge and emotions should merge. . . A synthesis is not possible but what were given here is a wonderful meditation on the world of pain and beauty, of politics and music, nature and human relationships. A fantastic poem and fantastically translated by Rika Lesser! Adam Zagajewski
-- Adam Zagajewski
Just what we need, another poem that can never stop being read, only entered, continued, lived. . . Lesser (what a name for the translator of the latest wisdom literature to hit the fan!) had to hear Sonnevis voice before she could (or would) do the work. In other words, loved the poem.And that is why we may read it, not well but as well: to hear the voice, in English now: entered, continued, lived. . . Yes, just what we need.Richard Howard
-- Richard Howard
