Child Is Not a Knife

Göran Sonnevi has written twelve books of poems and assembled and revised collections of his poems (most of which are in print in Sweden in mass-market paperback editions). Rika Lesser is a poet and has translated numerous works of poetry, including a selection of the poems of Rilke, Rilke: Between Roots (Princeton). For a group of poems from A Child Is Not a Knife, she received the Poetry Society of America's George Bogin Memorial Award in 1992 and the American Scandinavian Foundation's

• AcknowledgmentsGoran Sonnevi: An IntroductionSonnevi: A Translator's Retrospective MontageKoster, 19733Whose life? you asked15the hyacinth17Dyron; 198118Summer has turned now And I go21Seeing your smile23Mourning Cloak25Words have no limits30I said to you33The twilight of spring rain37You say I'm naive38You, who say yes to39Demon colors40For S***, 197143There is life that / will not give up45You sense the light's fragrance46The wound bleeding48A Child Is Not a Knife49Breaking up: that large feeling52in the meadow by the shore57Incalculable: the heart59Death is no more60The narrow shaft61Fagerfjall, Tjorn, 1986; For Pentti62Aby, Oland; 198264what / do I find / then67From the cliff at the foot of Skull Mountain70New Year's 198673The center of unheard-of, of enormous hopes75Burge, Oja; 198979Notes87Swedish Contents and Bibliographical Citations93

Winner of the 1993 Translation Prize, American-Scandinavian Foundation