Gunnar Harding

Gunnar Harding Poems

Gunnar Harding Biography

Karl Gunnar Harding (born 11 June 1940) is a Swedish poet, novelist, essayist and translator, considered 'one of Sweden's foremost poets'. Among his other poetry collections is Starnberger See from 1977. Among his novels is Luffaren Svarta Hästen from 1977. He published the children's book Mannen och paraplyet in 1990. He was awarded the Dobloug Prize in 2011. Gunnar Harding was born in Sundsvall and brought up in Bromma as the son of the doctor Gösta Harding. He studied painting in Stockholm and was a jazz musician before making his literary debut in 1967 with Lokomotivet som frös fast. During his early career, Harding travelled extensively in America, and this influenced his work. Harding is noted primarily for his poetry (mostly in free verse but also significant prose-poetry). Alongside this, he has written essays, a book about the origins of jazz called Kreol, and a few stories. He has also worked as an editor, for Lyrikvännen ('poetry-lover') 1971–1974, for Artes for many years, and for Artes International during its five-year run. He has been a member of the Samfundet De Nio (chair number 5) since 1993 and served on the 1973 Swedish Bible committion 1981–1989. Harding's literary significance is partly as an introducer of foreign modernism, especially French, American and British poetry, into Swedish literature. Harding also takes a lively interest in jazz and likes to read his poetry with jazz as background music.)

The Best Poem Of Gunnar Harding

1948

My brother's sitting high in the linden tree, the tall one
near the wall. He can't get down.
My sister has blond braids and a pink ribbon in her hair.
A girl arrives from Germany.
She has dark braids. She's crying.
My father puts on his bicycle clips.
He rides to Odengatan 9 with his hat and his briefcase.
Something dark that's happened somewhere else must be understood.
When the streetlights come on we have to run home.
I stand panting in the foyer.
My mother's in the kitchen. She looks sad.
She's dicing carrots.
My brother's lying in bed eating gooseberry fool with a teaspoon
to make it last longer.
He lies in bed for a year and eats and eats
but only gets skinnier.
I lie on my stomach on the floor and draw a war that never ends.
Something dark that must be understood
is between the lampposts. Something dark seeps into me
and becomes a spirited lifelong despair.
There are orange cubes to be eaten cooked.
There is a man in a dark overcoat and a fur hat.
He goes out skating in the evening darkness.
His path would be hidden from me
if it weren't for the graceful movements of his glowing cigar.
There's white smoke above his head.
Columns of smoke from chimneys rise straight up over the roofs.
They are the houses' frozen souls,
visible perhaps because of the moonlight,
perhaps because of something else
that will never be revealed to me.

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