It’s truly heartwarming to see the Literature prize go to Tomas Tranströmer. One can see how the Swedish Academy might have resisted giving the prize to a local boy out of some sense of propriety, so it’s great to see that sense of propriety gave way to a more proper sense of the proprietary.
Although many Americans haven't heard of Tranströmer, Sweden should be proud to honor a poet who has meant so much throughout the world, and who confirms the notion held that poetry can take on the exterior world and can be politically charged. From what I've read a wide public has embraced a poet who does not necessarily tell the nation what it thinks it wants to hear. For many of us poetry with its use of everyday subjects and images is an examination of the interior-world , a view into the unconscious with a syncopation of rhythms and simplicity of diction. American poet Carl Sandburg said, “Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.” If that means anything to anyone, there’ll be dancing in the streets of Stockholm tonight.
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