The Star by My Head - (Poets in the World) by Malena Mörling & Jonas Ellerström (Paperback)

About the Book

From Edith Sodergran to Gunnar Ekelof to Nobel Prize-winning Tomas Transtromer, Sweden has long been home to a rich and luminous poetic tradition, notable for refreshing openness, striking honesty, and a rare transcendence that seems to spring from a keen attention to the natural world. With poems that span from the beginnings of Modernism to present day, "The Star By My Head: Eight Swedish Poets" is an essential bilingual volume that offers stark, exquisite translations by internationally acclaimed poets and translators Malena Morling and Jonas Ellerstrom. Published in partnership with the Poetry Foundation, "The Star By My Head" is the premiere American anthology of 20th- and 21st-century Swedish poetry in English translation.

Book Synopsis

Published in partnership with the Poetry Foundation, this breathtaking anthology features eight of Sweden's most highly regarded poets.

From Edith Södergran to Gunnar Ekelöf to Nobel Prize-winning Tomas Tranströmer, Sweden has long been home to a rich and luminous poetic tradition, notable for refreshing openness, striking honesty, and a rare transcendence that often springs from a keen attention to the natural world. In the poems of The Star by My Head, which begin in the early twentieth century and come up to the present day, pinecones cluster out of reach and lilacs attempt their tentative rebirth each year. A bee makes a face like a newborn's. A name etched in vapor on a windowpane, and its erasure, brings happiness.

With exquisite translations by internationally acclaimed poets and translators Malena Mörling and Jonas Ellerström offered alongside the Swedish originals, The Star by My Head is an essential bilingual volume and the premiere American anthology of its kind.

Review Quotes

Any book contextualizing the sheer brilliance and intense interiority of a tradition that includes Södergran, Ekelöf, and Tranströmer is bound to be an extraordinary gift, especially coming from the hands of a gifted poet and translator like Malena Mörling.
--Robert Hass, National Book Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, and former Poet Laureate of the U.S.

The Star By My Head: Poets from Sweden provides an excellent introduction to the tradition of Modern lyric Swedish poets, poetry, and how their tradition has transformed, carried on, and influenced the world of poetry. This anthology will help influence an even greater English-speaking audience.--Poetry International

This book won't just tell us something about Swedish poetry, it will help us to see ourselves in a new way.
--Ilya Kaminsky, author of Dancing in Odessa and editor of The Ecco Anthology of International Poetry

This is a selection splendidly edited to highlight the history of what is Swedish about Swedish poetry, without avoiding the obvious fact that the younger poets are influenced by many other poetries, mostly American. The stark delight of luminous starlit nights and emotional landscapes makes this a compelling journey."
--Andrei Codrescu, author of So Recently Rent a World

About the Author

Ilya Kaminsky is the Director of the Harriet Monroe Poetry Institute at the Poetry Foundation. A Russian born poet and translator, he is the author of Dancing in Odessa and co-editor of The Ecco Anthology of International Poetry. He lives in San Diego.

Malena Mörling is the author of two collections of poems, Astoria and Ocean Avenue. She has received a Rona Jaffe Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Lannan Foundation Fellowship. She is on the faculty of the Low-Residency MFA program at New England College, and is Associate Professor of Creative Writing at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Jonas Ellerström is a Swedish author, translator, publisher, and critic, born in Southern Sweden, now living in Stockholm. He has published poetry and essay collections in Swedish and has translated many volumes of poetry, including the works of William Blake, Arthur Rimbaud, and T.S. Eliot.