That's an interesting recommendation. I'm not a poetry buff, and most of his work that I came across online was prose poetry, which has always been a weak spot of mine. Just reading his bio and learning about other Swedish poets of his generation lends some insight to this song, however. It puts into context Matsson's tweet (as Kashika informed us) about this song being a song of "finding hope."
That's an interesting recommendation. I'm not a poetry buff, and most of his work that I came across online was prose poetry, which has always been a weak spot of mine. Just reading his bio and learning about other Swedish poets of his generation lends some insight to this song, however. It puts into context Matsson's tweet (as Kashika informed us) about this song being a song of "finding hope."
To speak generally, it seems like Martinson and his contemporaries led comparatively tough lives to ours. Not to mention that it was this generation of men who...
To speak generally, it seems like Martinson and his contemporaries led comparatively tough lives to ours. Not to mention that it was this generation of men who fostered many of the modern advancements that make our lives so comparatively easy. The first lines:
"Some will say it's not even funny
And there you stand, not even trying"
And lines reiterating the various, universal objects like "the sun" or "the dirt" that are "just different" suggest to me a gradual yet dramatic shift between modern and postmodern life. It pays homage to certain aspects of life in the early twentieth century (for example the line, "And the only one you can tell it to / Is the only one who will know," which hints at the personal nature of interactions with those immediately present back then compared to now--the idea of a secret being secret or something lost simply being lost), while at the same time in the last lines, "at least something is alright with your thinking / Because they shook the earth in 1904," makes me think of all the knowledge and luxuries we have at our fingertips as a result of that generation.
Having lived most of his life as an orphan and experiencing WWI, Martinson managed to find enough beauty, hope, or at least intrigue in the world to win a Nobel prize for his poetry (although it was apparently controversial).
He also spent seven years traveling the seas, which could apply to the first part of the bridge. Much of his early poetry especially has to do with the sea.
Of course, I could be reading too far into some of these things, but they certainly seem curious.
Harry Martinson was born in 1904. Please, read his poems and you'll understand.
Yes, i'm the first non swedish guy to discover this... :D
Yes, i'm the first non swedish guy to discover this... :D
That's an interesting recommendation. I'm not a poetry buff, and most of his work that I came across online was prose poetry, which has always been a weak spot of mine. Just reading his bio and learning about other Swedish poets of his generation lends some insight to this song, however. It puts into context Matsson's tweet (as Kashika informed us) about this song being a song of "finding hope."
That's an interesting recommendation. I'm not a poetry buff, and most of his work that I came across online was prose poetry, which has always been a weak spot of mine. Just reading his bio and learning about other Swedish poets of his generation lends some insight to this song, however. It puts into context Matsson's tweet (as Kashika informed us) about this song being a song of "finding hope."
To speak generally, it seems like Martinson and his contemporaries led comparatively tough lives to ours. Not to mention that it was this generation of men who...
To speak generally, it seems like Martinson and his contemporaries led comparatively tough lives to ours. Not to mention that it was this generation of men who fostered many of the modern advancements that make our lives so comparatively easy. The first lines:
"Some will say it's not even funny And there you stand, not even trying"
And lines reiterating the various, universal objects like "the sun" or "the dirt" that are "just different" suggest to me a gradual yet dramatic shift between modern and postmodern life. It pays homage to certain aspects of life in the early twentieth century (for example the line, "And the only one you can tell it to / Is the only one who will know," which hints at the personal nature of interactions with those immediately present back then compared to now--the idea of a secret being secret or something lost simply being lost), while at the same time in the last lines, "at least something is alright with your thinking / Because they shook the earth in 1904," makes me think of all the knowledge and luxuries we have at our fingertips as a result of that generation.
Having lived most of his life as an orphan and experiencing WWI, Martinson managed to find enough beauty, hope, or at least intrigue in the world to win a Nobel prize for his poetry (although it was apparently controversial).
He also spent seven years traveling the seas, which could apply to the first part of the bridge. Much of his early poetry especially has to do with the sea.
Of course, I could be reading too far into some of these things, but they certainly seem curious.