När jag var snö
“The cat fell ill and died on one of spring’s most beautiful days.
It released in me a great anger at Disappearance itself, the cat’s and my own.
Anger at nature’s inexorability: desire, birth, death.
Yes, it is the simplest of all real knowledge, but how can one be content with that?
Above the cat’s cooling body I saw the membrane that surrounds everything.
The cosmic amniotic sac.
Beautiful and irresistible, with its repellent invitation to dance.
And so I move in and out, from return to return.”
A meditation on loss, ageing and transformation, this book was praised for its tonal purity and emotional exactitude. Reviewers highlighted Strandberg’s ability to write about grief without consolation, yet without despair — allowing time, matter and language themselves to carry meaning.
Pressvoices
“When poetry does what it should, this is exactly what happens to the reader: I surrender myself completely to the words and let them carry me—on the long drive, or the walk across the field—towards the end.”
Aftonbladet
“There is so much sensuality and strength in her poetic expression; she looks at the world with unabashed eyes…”
Sveriges Television
“These poems are accessible—narrative and direct—firmly rooted in material life. Even an unseasoned poetry reader could be deeply moved: a teenager, an animal-lover, anyone who knows they are as much a mammal as the cat and the heifer.”
Dagens Nyheter
Ingela Strandberg (born 1944) is one of the most significant contemporary Nordic poets, whose major recognition arrived late in life. After decades of writing with quiet intensity, her work has in recent years been recognised as a late-period mastery of rare depth and authority. Rooted in the rural landscapes of southern Sweden, Strandberg’s poetry moves…
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world English: Granta, :“The cat fell ill and died on one of spring’s most beautiful days.
It released in me a great anger at Disappearance itself, the cat’s and my own.
Anger at nature’s inexorability: desire, birth, death.
Yes, it is the simplest of all real knowledge, but how can one be content with that?
Above the cat’s cooling body I saw the membrane that surrounds everything.
The cosmic amniotic sac.
Beautiful and irresistible, with its repellent invitation to dance.
And so I move in and out, from return to return.”
A meditation on loss, ageing and transformation, this book was praised for its tonal purity and emotional exactitude. Reviewers highlighted Strandberg’s ability to write about grief without consolation, yet without despair — allowing time, matter and language themselves to carry meaning.
Pressvoices
“When poetry does what it should, this is exactly what happens to the reader: I surrender myself completely to the words and let them carry me—on the long drive, or the walk across the field—towards the end.”
Aftonbladet
“There is so much sensuality and strength in her poetic expression; she looks at the world with unabashed eyes…”
Sveriges Television
“These poems are accessible—narrative and direct—firmly rooted in material life. Even an unseasoned poetry reader could be deeply moved: a teenager, an animal-lover, anyone who knows they are as much a mammal as the cat and the heifer.”
Dagens Nyheter
