Variationen über ein Thema von Silfverstolpe

Verses that oscillate between the intimate familiarity of life stories and philosophical expansiveness, between the lakes and summer meadows of childhood and surreal dream landscapes. The Swedish author Lars Gustafsson varies a theme from the poet Gunnar Mascoll Silfverstolpe in this collection of poems. It is about the childhood summers of his compatriot and fellow poet in the old province of Västmanland, north of Lake Mälaren, where both Silfverstolpe and, a generation later, Gustafsson grew up—summers that meant an endless holiday and knew no darkness. These poems speak of childhood memories, the sounds and echoes of the world, and of time. “Yes. Time passes. And silently. / It doesn’t need clocks. / But clocks need time.” Gustafsson invokes the “brotherhood of the hour” and finds sensual, moving images for the complex thoughts he explores in these poems. No, not hours. Not days either. No, not hours. Days. Years. No, none of that. A shock at what remains.