I have been a good reader this summer but a worse blogger and I fear that blogging and blog reading will remain slow for the rest of August. However, before I disappear again I want to introduce you to a favorite poet of mine, Dan Andersson.
I guess most readers have some author that transport us back to places we have been to or the people that we were. For me one of those authors is the Swedish poet Dan Andersson (1888-1920). Living abroad I sometimes long for my childhood forests and no-one catches the feeling of those forests like him. Admittedly he wrote about life in the much more impressive nature around the Swedish-Norwegian border, but his texts still feel like home.
I came to think of him as I found a collection of his poetry and ballads while browsing a used bookstore recently, and have been reading it on and off for the last week. Many of the poems depict the nature around his family homes but also the lives of the people around him, especially people on the edges of society. Other poems describe religious doubts and fears. However, what is perhaps most notable about his poetry is their musical properties. Many of his poems have been brilliantly set to music, sometimes by the author himself. I would even argue that some of them only truly shines when sung.
Dan Andersson’s poetry is probably hard to find in a good translation but you may still be able to find and enjoy some of the musical renditions. I especially recommend the ones by Sofia Karlsson!
What about you, do you have any texts that transports you back to a specific time or place?
I read that in a book 
I’ve not been an avid reader of poetry, though when I take the time to read some I do appreciate it — and it does vary, some nature poetry, occasionally micropoems like haiku and senryu, often some witty doggerel. The poetry that most affects me is that associated with music, particularly folksong and — from childhood — nursery rhymes.
And don’t worry about infrequent blogging: I’ve noticed that visits to and likes on my blog tail off in the summer and peak around January-March. On another matter, I’m working on a review of ‘The Summer Book’. It’s everything you say, and more.
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If you enjoy folksongs I really recommend Sofia Karlsson’s Dan Andersson interpretations, even though they are in Swedish. I know several of them can be found on youtube.
I look forward to reading your review of The Summer Book, I’m so glad you liked it! I’ll make sure to come by to read it when I regain internet access in a few weeks.
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Infrequent blogging and poetry have been the thoughts of my morning and then I came to your post! I was reading Edith Nesbit’s poem ‘August’ and it so exactly fitted my mood of the moment. I think blogging might belong to the world – have a look!
Still to read The Summer Book, but it will happen and I recently bought a couple of books in translation, thinking about your idea for a ‘books in translation’ challenge!
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That’s a beautiful poem, I’m glad you recommended it!
I can really recommend a books in translation challenge, I love the way my reading has widened since I started it. And The Summer Book would be an excellent inclusion, short, easy to read and brilliant.
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I’ve never heard of Dan Andersson before. But his work sounds lovely!
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The first book that came to mind when I read the question you posed at the end of your post was Ian McEwan’s ‘Atonement.’ I first read the novel as part of a Postmodern Literature course during my senior year in undergrad. I fell in love with the text and soon began reading more of McEwan’s work (which was a thoughtful if not particularly upbeat experience). The novel always takes me back to that year and the years that followed. Freshly graduated I was working as a Youth Minister. The work could be wildly busy but, during the down time, it afforded me lots of time to read for pleasure. I explored so many novels and nonfiction works during those years and really immersed myself in some authors who are still favorites of mine today. So ‘Atonement’ always makes me think of the freedom of those years and the joy of challenging myself to see what I could find, academically speaking, in a text when I wasn’t being guided anymore by my professors.
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