The Half-Finished Heaven: Selected Poems

From the Winner of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Literature

An expanded edition by the Nobel laureate Tomas Tranströmer, translated by the award-winning poet Robert Bly

Every person is a half-open door
leading to a room for everyone.

The endless field under us.

Water glitters between the trees.

The lake is a window into the earth.

—from “The Half-Finished Heaven”

Tomas Tranströmer’s celebrated career earned him a place among the twentieth century’s essential global voices. Translated into more than fifty languages, his poetry draws readers to its power and resonance, its shaping of landscapes both outer and interior, stark and yet alive to the luminous. In 2011, Tranströmer was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature “because, through his condensed, translucent images, he gives us fresh access to reality.”

The National Book Award–winning poet and renowned translator Robert Bly first introduced American readers to Tranströmer’s poetry in his seminal English translations, all of which are collected here for the first time in this expanded edition. With an updated introduction and fourteen additional poems, The Half-Finished Heaven presents the best of Tranströmer’s poetry in one indispensable volume.