Swedish Poetry 1
SOCIAL CRITICISM It was in the 1960s that politic
al poetry made its greatest impact on Swedish writing, and one of its most forceful champions, by virtue of her invigorating feminism, was Sonja Åkesson. “Concrete Poetry” was the movement that set its stamp on the 1960s; it introduced a new simplicity that also established the framework for the political poetry that was being written. This was supposed to be clear and hard–hitting, as is palpable in the work of Åkesson. By allowing the imagination to infiltrate realistic depiction, the writer Åsa Nelvin, who was active in the following decade, would both deepen and make more subtle the critique of society. This was to prove an indirect incitement for future generations to adopt an approach sustained by a combination of the concrete and the abstract. SWEDISH POETRY 32