Five Swedish Poets: No 24 (Series B: English Translations of Works of Scandinavian Literature) - Softcover

This volume includes selected poems by five contemporary Swedish poets: Kjell Espmark, Lennart Sjogren, Eva Strom, Staffan Soderblom and Werner Aspenstrom. The editor/translator is the author of Selected Poems 1963-78 and Coming Down to Earth and Spring is Soon.

Acclaimed translator Robin Fulton has chosen a wide-ranging selection from the works of four men and one woman for this volume of contemporary Swedish poetry.: Kjell Espmark, Lennart Sjogren, Staffan Soderblom, Werner Aspenstrom, and Eva Strom. Five Swedish Poets includes the last poem by Aspenstrom, who died in January 1997, entitled "Dear Squirrel" a poem he was working on it in the final week of his life. A brief, but informative essay by Fulton, on each poet, accompanies their work. From Fulton's preface to the book:

"If poetry translation is a form of vandalization then I have been vandalizing the work of these five poets on and off for many years....My justification for presenting these particular five poets, and not some other group of five or more, is purely subjective: I have followed their work with deepening interest over the years. I think the contrasts between them are enough to give variety to the grouping, and while I am all too aware of what is lost as their poems are lifted out of their native habitat I hope that at least some of their individual qualities can be gathered from my versions".