SOURCE: "A Cull of Trance-Roamers," in Parnassus: Poetry in Review, Vol. 11, No. 2, Fall/Winter, 1984, pp. 192-212.

In the following excerpt, Birkerts reviews Songs of Something Else: Selected Poems, and analyzes three poetic styles—surreal, mystical but conflicted, and lyrically spiritual—represented in Ekelöfs work.

 "Poetry is something which is only done by the whole man."
Gunnar Ekelöf 

Gunnar Ekelöf came to poetry by a circuitous route. He first studied music in Paris, and when he abandoned that, it was to move to London to pursue Oriental Studies. It was not until illness forced him to drop his plan of travelling to Asia that he finally turned to poetry. He did not relinquish either interest and the poetry of his later years has often been characterized as a kind of Eastern music but many years had to pass before such a synthesis could be effected. First...