Tomas Tranströmer

Tomas Tranströmer is a famous and talented Swedish Poet whose prose is unique, bold, often convoluted and difficult to understand, and fascinating to many people. His poems tend to have dark undertones and break ground on deep subjects including the mind's inner workings and the state of the world's politics. I read Tomas Tranströmer's poem "National Insecurity" and I was both intrigued and impressed by his work. I believe that the subject of the poem is the current state of world politics, how greed often takes precedent over what's best for the people and how a veil is placed over people's eyes as citizens and consumers. In this poem he vilifies the media when he says "the demon merges with the opened newspaper." He also makes an allusion to our planet being destroyed by human greed over resources when he says "so the demon merges with the opened newspaper." When Tranströmer says "The mother-turtle flees flying under the water," he is alluding to our planet and how it is being destroyed by human greed over resources. The title of the poem, "National Insecurity" is a social commentary on how vast miscarriages of justice, destruction of communities and the environment, and the general rotting of America is carried out under the guise of national security. I like this po because the reader has to read it several times before the full, complex meaning is absorbed. I also believe it is possible for this poem to have different meanings to different people which is perhaps why Tomas Tranströmer has become so popular.