“After a Death” by Tomas Transtromer

My search for a poem for this week was very short; as soon as I happened upon “After a Death,” by Swedish poet Tomas Transtromer, I knew I was hooked. The poem is short (and translated into English, by Robert Bly), but its images are so poignant that it seems perfectly self-contained:

Once there was a shock

that left behind a long, shimmering comet tail.

It keeps us inside. It makes the TV pictures snowy.

It settles in cold drops on the telephone wires.

One can still go slowly on skis in the winter sun

through brush where a few leaves hang on.

They resemble pages torn from old television directories.

Names swallowed by the cold.

It is still beautiful to hear the heart beat

but often the shadow seems more real than the body.

The samurai looks insignificant

beside his armor of black dragon scales.

Transtromer uses the metaphor of a “long, shimmering comet tail” (2) to describe the impact of the “shock” (1) of the death; comet tails are formed by the combined forces of the sun’s radiation pressure and solar wind, so this image expresses how powerful and stressful the situation was, as well as how hard it hit those affected by it. The poet then goes on to compare the shock to a storm, probably a rainstorm, since “It settles in cold drops on the telephone wires” (4). It forces those closest to the deceased to stay “inside” (3), and messes with the TV reception, thus showing how heavy the storm (the shock, the grief) really is.

Tomas Transtromer

The next stanza continues to capture this sensation, saying that one can carry on under these circumstances, but more “slowly” (5), more vulnerably and distractedly. Even the “few leaves that hang on” (6) has a double meaning; the choice of “winter” (5) for the poem’s season is not accidental. The leaves symbolize the feeling of hanging on by a thread that so often accompanies the loss of a loved one. This is further emphasized with the comparison to “pages torn” (7), with “Names swallowed by the cold” (8): we often feel ripped apart when a death occurs, torn asunder. Everything gets obscured, just as the cold makes the names indistinguishable.

The last stanza illustrates the disorientation that results from grief. While the poet recognizes that life is still an amazing thing (“It is still beautiful to hear the heart beat” [9]), he feels discombobulated, not himself. In this state, “the shadow seems more real than the body” (10). He compares this to a “samurai” (11) who looks plain and weak next to the “armor” (12) that protects him. He underlines this point by noting that the armor is made of “black dragon scales” (12), which shows that it is ostentatious and extravagant.

Overall, Transtromer’s poem conveys the emotions that follow a death, like shock, sadness, confusion, and emptiness, and it does so masterfully. The metaphors he utilizes, while disparate, somehow manage to encapsulate the feelings and actions that people experience after a death. The poem doesn’t tie up neatly at the end, but I think this is reflective of its realism. Transtromer isn’t trying to hide the pain that comes with grief; he wants to embody it fully, and I think he succeeds in doing so.

• Read more about Tomas Transtromer (who was awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in Literature)
• Check out my analyses of works by two other Nobel Laureates, W.B. Yeats and Seamus Heaney