Nordic Voices in Print now has complete texts of my translations of collections by Karin Boye and Gösta Ågren, as well as selections of poetry by Bertel Gripenberg, Arvid Mörne and Elmer Diktonius.
The blog can also be accessed at
http://nordicvoices.xtreemhost.com/
Showing posts with label Elmer Diktonius. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Elmer Diktonius. Show all posts
Saturday, 18 December 2010
Wednesday, 3 November 2010
Elmer Diktonius - 2 Poems
The child's dream
An angel came from heaven
with a sausage in her hand
and gave it to me –
oh how good it was!
And the angel said, come to heaven!
and we flew. And there was God.
With a lollipop in his mouth.
And he gave it to me.
And it was good too!
And God said: there is always meat
for poor children,
and pastries on top
and ice cream!
And we ate.
And all our tummies rumbled full.
And God said:
who ‘s that singing so nicely?
My name is Diktonius
My name is Diktonius –
a liar like everyone else.
not songs do I sing
but concrete,
have no ideas –
an iron skeleton is my inner being.
My lines are the explosion’s,
my heat the crater’s -
if you seek coolness
I give you blocks of ice,
I understand much,
know very little –
but what do you care!
translated from Finland-Swedish by David McDuff
An angel came from heaven
with a sausage in her hand
and gave it to me –
oh how good it was!
And the angel said, come to heaven!
and we flew. And there was God.
With a lollipop in his mouth.
And he gave it to me.
And it was good too!
And God said: there is always meat
for poor children,
and pastries on top
and ice cream!
And we ate.
And all our tummies rumbled full.
And God said:
who ‘s that singing so nicely?
My name is Diktonius
My name is Diktonius –
a liar like everyone else.
not songs do I sing
but concrete,
have no ideas –
an iron skeleton is my inner being.
My lines are the explosion’s,
my heat the crater’s -
if you seek coolness
I give you blocks of ice,
I understand much,
know very little –
but what do you care!
translated from Finland-Swedish by David McDuff
Friday, 22 October 2010
Sontag Award
From the Scandinavia House website:
The 2010 Susan Sontag Prize for Translation was awarded to Benjamin Mier-Cruz, a Ph.D. candidate in Scandinavian Languages and Literatures at UC Berkeley, for his proposed translation of selected letters and poems by the Finland-Swedish author Elmer Diktonius (1896 -1961). In celebration of the translation prize, programs will include the panel discussions The Challenges of Literary Translation Today and Elmer Diktonius, Finland-Swedish Literature, and Modernism in Scandinavia. Programs will also include a screening of the rare Sontag film Duet for Cannibals/Duett för kannibaler (Sweden, 1969).
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