Book Description

Kjell Espmarks The Inner Space (Den Inre Rymden, 2014) is the culmination of an oeuvre ranging over more than a half century. His previous book of poetry, Vintergata (2007), in English called Lend Me Your Voice, was a success. One of the leading Swedish newspapers, Svenska Dagbladet, called it the best Swedish poetry in the new millenium and it was promptly translated into ten languages, including Chinese and Arabic. This new book The Inner Space is to appear in Sweden in the autumn of 2014, but is simultaneously published in Italian, Spanish, and Arabic. A Chinese version is on its way. Vintergata - literally Milky Way - is a constellation of a hundred small mono-logues in which the dead from all ages, some famous, most of them anonymous, appeal to our attention. They could be said to form a modest history on the margin of History. The Inner Space is more personal and has a light mood. It brings us a further hundred monologues but this time there is a continuous shift between autobiographical moments and the voices of the dead. The earlier book finished in the picture of an ego on a bench at the bay, hit by an obviously fatal heart attack.The Inner Space starts there, in a new attempt at life, recreating prehistory and family chronicle, childhood and formation, work and love, up to "the final vertigo of childrens voices." The ages appear unhampered by logic, one beside the other - your head is "full of memories of all that hasnt happened yet." At the same time urgent voices from outside break in, voices that carry essential, often harrowing messages, contributing to form the life they invade. This poetry is direct, clear-cut and dramatic, presenting "the second simplicity" that one of the poems talks about. It addresses a wide audience.