Swedish Poetry 1
Majken Johansson (1930-1993) Omtal (Talk About, 1
969) Majken Johansson’s poetry is characterised by a series of abrupt reversals. She was the atheist who went through a complete conversion as an adult to become a soldier in the Salvation Army. Her songs of praise to Jesus form one of the more unusual elements in twentieth-century Swedish poetry. Just as unusual is the mordant irony that so effectively punctures any suggestion of the idyllic or the sentimental. The suicide of a beloved is the catalyst for several of her most powerful poems, as in the collection Omtal. There are new perspectives here on timeless subjects, while both the Beatles and the psalms are quoted from with the same intensity and enthusiasm. Selected Collections of Poetry: Buskteater (1952) I grund och botten (1956) Andens undanflykt (1958) Liksom överlämnad (1965) Omtal (1969) Djup ropar till djup (1989) Karin Boye (1900-1941) För trädets skull (For the Tree’s Sake, 1935) Karin Boye is among the most popular of twentieth-century Swedish poets, particularly with younger readers. There are many accounts of how significant the encounter with her poems at school would prove. Her depictions of the world may seem pessimistic and categorical inasmuch as she moves freely between the concepts “never” and “always”–with pain being permanent and its relief an illusion. Anguish is definitive and all encompassing. And yet in the collection För trädets skull, a somewhat more reconciled tone can be heard in sudden and affecting moments of bliss. Ideologies and religions appear powerless in the face of the will to live and the human thirst for love that both liberates and provides the desired reward. In the events described someone is often addressed as “you”, which invites the reader to make a dialogical reading. The poems evoke a struggle in which the poet battles with both real and imaginary enemies. Her work possesses symbolic depths and a sophisticated aesthetics that allow the poems to retain their power to captivate readers who are no longer young as well. Selected Collections of Poetry: Moln (1922) Gömda land (1924) Härdarna (1927) För trädets skull (1935) De sju dödssynderna och andra efterlämnade dikter (1941) SWEDISH POETRY 12