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100 books I keep on keeping: The Collected Poems of Karin Boye
My father is a very private man, not very much for big gestures of affections. But I’ve never doubted his love and care for me, and one of his ways to show it, is to gift you with books. All through my childhood he would randomly give me a book he thought I might like. Most of them became books I loved. When I was about thirteen, he gave me Collected Poems by Karin Boye.
Karin Boye was a Swedish author, born in 1900 and died 1941. She worked as a translator and she wrote several novels, only one which is still read, Kallocain (1940). It’s a dystopian SF novel about a future where people live in a totalitarian world state where Kallocain is a truth drug, used to suppress and root out any thought on rebellion. It was an inspired by a visit to germany and the uprising of the Nazists in the early 1930’s. She also met her lifelong partner there, Margot Hanel, who was Jewish. But Boye is also famous for her poems, publishing four collections during her life, and a fifth one came after her death. She killed herself in 1941 after visiting a friend, who Boye seems to have had an unsided crush on, who was dying in cancer. It’s likely the friend's illness may have contributed to her decision, but also WWII, which she was very pessimistic over. Margot killed herself a month later.
I think the most famous lines of her poems is these;
Yes, of course it hurts when buds are breaking.
Why else would the springtime falter?
For the teenage me, her poems were wonderful. The themes of growing, struggling and one-sided love suited my own feelings, and I used my paperback as a kind of diary. It’s filled with underlined lines, and notes explaining I felt exactly like that on a particular date. Poems are difficult to translate, but all Boye’s poems have rather good translations, and all are available here. And below is a few of my favourites.
Spellbound
When you are away, my soul hungers wildly.
When you are close, I long for you just as much -
in despair I see,
numb, secluded,
how empty and futile
is the minute which goes by.
Your essence of proud and regal perfumes fine
I secretly wanted to drink, a sacred wine -
but I stand heavy as death
as in dreams,
with a thirst like Tantalos
in clear streams.
In times of solitude my tongue has burned
to tell you of the beautiful thing I have dreamt and felt
but when I am near you
my thoughts slumber,
my door is closed,
and my heart is numb.
Everything Contains You
Everything contains you, more than a deadly
toll.
You are light and darkness in a double bowl.
How one shimmers naked and cool.
Air of mother-of-pearl over water of pale opal.
Seeing, seen,
dressed for the day
dawn slowly opens its oyster shell.
But the other broods quiet and dusky,
also an oyster, but down deep where the sea is
still.
Unopened,
since the end of creation
defending the secret room of a mother's
slumber.
Everything is you, the whole of my essence's
goal.
You are the day and night in a double bowl
You Are My Purest Comfort
You are my purest comfort,
my most steadfast shelter,
you are the best I have,
for nothing hurts as much as you.
No, nothing hurts as you.
You ache like ice and fire,
you cut like steel my soul -
you are the best I have.
I Want To Meet …
Armed, upright and shielded in armour
I went forth -
but from fear was the coat of mail cast
and from shame.
I want to throw down my weapons,
sword and shield.
All the stark hostility
was my coldness.
I have seen the dry seeds
finally grow.
I have seen the light green
unfurl.
Mighty is the tenderness of life
stronger than iron,
driven out of the heart of the Earth
defenceless.
Spring dawns in winter regions,
where I froze.
I want to meet the forces of life
weaponless.
Karin Boye was a Swedish author, born in 1900 and died 1941. She worked as a translator and she wrote several novels, only one which is still read, Kallocain (1940). It’s a dystopian SF novel about a future where people live in a totalitarian world state where Kallocain is a truth drug, used to suppress and root out any thought on rebellion. It was an inspired by a visit to germany and the uprising of the Nazists in the early 1930’s. She also met her lifelong partner there, Margot Hanel, who was Jewish. But Boye is also famous for her poems, publishing four collections during her life, and a fifth one came after her death. She killed herself in 1941 after visiting a friend, who Boye seems to have had an unsided crush on, who was dying in cancer. It’s likely the friend's illness may have contributed to her decision, but also WWII, which she was very pessimistic over. Margot killed herself a month later.
I think the most famous lines of her poems is these;
Yes, of course it hurts when buds are breaking.
Why else would the springtime falter?
For the teenage me, her poems were wonderful. The themes of growing, struggling and one-sided love suited my own feelings, and I used my paperback as a kind of diary. It’s filled with underlined lines, and notes explaining I felt exactly like that on a particular date. Poems are difficult to translate, but all Boye’s poems have rather good translations, and all are available here. And below is a few of my favourites.
Spellbound
When you are away, my soul hungers wildly.
When you are close, I long for you just as much -
in despair I see,
numb, secluded,
how empty and futile
is the minute which goes by.
Your essence of proud and regal perfumes fine
I secretly wanted to drink, a sacred wine -
but I stand heavy as death
as in dreams,
with a thirst like Tantalos
in clear streams.
In times of solitude my tongue has burned
to tell you of the beautiful thing I have dreamt and felt
but when I am near you
my thoughts slumber,
my door is closed,
and my heart is numb.
Everything Contains You
Everything contains you, more than a deadly
toll.
You are light and darkness in a double bowl.
How one shimmers naked and cool.
Air of mother-of-pearl over water of pale opal.
Seeing, seen,
dressed for the day
dawn slowly opens its oyster shell.
But the other broods quiet and dusky,
also an oyster, but down deep where the sea is
still.
Unopened,
since the end of creation
defending the secret room of a mother's
slumber.
Everything is you, the whole of my essence's
goal.
You are the day and night in a double bowl
You Are My Purest Comfort
You are my purest comfort,
my most steadfast shelter,
you are the best I have,
for nothing hurts as much as you.
No, nothing hurts as you.
You ache like ice and fire,
you cut like steel my soul -
you are the best I have.
I Want To Meet …
Armed, upright and shielded in armour
I went forth -
but from fear was the coat of mail cast
and from shame.
I want to throw down my weapons,
sword and shield.
All the stark hostility
was my coldness.
I have seen the dry seeds
finally grow.
I have seen the light green
unfurl.
Mighty is the tenderness of life
stronger than iron,
driven out of the heart of the Earth
defenceless.
Spring dawns in winter regions,
where I froze.
I want to meet the forces of life
weaponless.