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Nobel winner Tomas Transtromer's Tulsa poem
Published: 10/6/2011 1:53 PM
Last Modified: 10/6/2011 1:53 PM


Tomas Transtromer, winner of the 2011 Nobel Prize for Literature.

When Tomas Transtromer won the Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 1990, I had to chance to talk with him by phone from his home in Sweden about a number of topics -- not the least of which was a poem he had written about a trip to Oklahoma he made in 1965.

Transtromer was today named the winner of the 2011 Nobel Prize for Literature, making him the first poet to receive the $1.5 million prize since Wislawa Szymborska in 1996.

Transtromer said about winning the Neustadt prize that "has a very special value," because "it is a very independent prize. The jury is a very independent collection of writers from many different nations,
and I imagine the discussions among those people were very
serious. Usually, prizes are given because they are a way
of supporting a writer, since most books that win prizes
often do not sell well."

As for coming to Tulsa in 1965, "I wanted to see an `unknown' part of America," he said with a laugh. "I got on a train in Chicago and came to
Tulsa, rented a car and drove around. It's been a long time, so I don't remember the places where I stopped."

The trip to Tulsa is captured in his poem, "Oklahoma," published in his 1966 book "Bells and Tracks."

"I also can't remember why I chose to go to Tulsa," he said. "Perhaps I had read something about it. The poem I wrote about it is something of a documentary - much of it are things that actually happened."

"Oklahoma" include three stanzas transcribing things Transtromer
heard during that brief trip.

"The man behind the counter said:
`I'm not trying to sell anything,
I'm not trying to sell anything,
I just want to show you something.'
And he displayed the Indian axes."

The full text of that 1990 interview can be found here, and the New York Times' report on Transtromer's Nobel win is here.




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ARTS

James D. Watts Jr. has lived in Oklahoma for most his life, even though he still has people saying to him, "Don't sound like you're from around these parts." A University of Oklahoma Phi Beta Kappa graduate, Watts has received the Governor Arts Award, Harwelden Award and the National Conference of Christians and Jews Beth Macklin Award for his writing. Before coming to the Tulsa World, Watts worked for the Tulsa Tribune.

Contact him at (918) 581-8478.

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