I Want You to Come Now! by Kristina Lugn, translated by Elizabeth Clark Wessel. Several chapbooks are arranged in a spiraling stack, shown from above, on a black gridded cutting mat. In the upper right an unfolded cover is partially shown.
Elizabeth Clark Wessel
Author photo of Kristina Lugn
Colophon page of the chapbook, including book description, author and translator bios, and information about the chapbook series. There is a blank at the bottom for the handwritten number: __ of 150.
All six chapbooks, arranged in a three-by-three grid on a woven rug. The covers are colorfully printed by hand from hand-carved linocut blocks.
Copies of I Want You to Come Now! in progress. A stack of folded covers and a stack of folded interiors sit side by side on a black gridded cutting mat, with thread and binder clips
Several chapbook interiors are arranged in a fanned out stack, showing the colophon page. Each is numbered by hand and a linocut stamp of our logo bee has been applied at the bottom center. To the left, a woman’s hand holds the stamp, carved in pink speedy-carve material and affixed to a wine cork handle.

I WANT YOU TO COME NOW!
Kristina Lugn, translated by Elizabeth Clark Wessel

$10.00

AVAILABLE NOW

February 2021
6 x 9 | 28 pages

Handprinted linocut cover
Caligo Safe-Wash Oil-Based Ink on white 100 lb cover
Digitally printed interior on cream opaque 70 lb text
Hand sewn in natural twine

Note: Individually printed by hand in small batches, no two covers will be exactly alike. Expect minor variations across the edition. This particular chapbook will come in three different color combinations, beginning with Lime (shown). Later orders may receive Orange, or Purple.

Thank you, readers, for your incredible support of Bloof’s handmade series. Full series subscriptions are sold out, but you can create your own custom bundle (discounted shipping) with the books that remain!

Limited to 150 numbered copies

BLOOF BOOKS CHAPBOOK SERIES
Volume 4: Issue 6 (2020)
ISSN 2373-163X

The poems in I Want You to Come Now! were originally published in the longer volume Bekantskap önskas med äldre bildad herre (Seeking Acquaintance with an Older Educated Gentleman) in 1983 by Alba Press in Stockholm. This translation by Elizabeth Clark Wessel is Lugn’s first book in English, and is published by kind permission of the author.

I Want You to Come Now! is the sixth and final chapbook in the 2019–2020 series from Bloof Books. Each chapbook in the series is released in a limited edition of at least one hundred numbered copies, followed by a digital release, and eventually in a combination volume called Bound.

Kristina Lugn (1948–2020) is the author of eight collections of poetry and eighteen plays, the former artistic director of the Brunnsgatan Fyra theatre in Stockholm, Sweden, and a member of the Swedish Academy. She’s also the winner of the Selma Lagerlöf Literature Prize (1999) and the Bellman Prize (2003). A chapbook of her poems called I Want You to Come Now!, translated by Elizabeth Clark Wessel, is forthcoming from Bloof in 2020.

Elizabeth Clark Wessel is the author of four chapbooks of poetry, a founding editor at Argos Book, and the translator of numerous novels from the Swedish, including most recently What We Owe by Golnaz Hashemzadeh Bonde. Originally from rural Nebraska, she spent many years living in New York and Connecticut, and these days calls Stockholm, Sweden home.

39 in stock

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Description

Excerpt

I Want You to Come Now!

I want you to come now!
I want you to come now at the latest!
Bring your pocket calculator.
And your grand piano.
Bring band-aids aspirin eau de cologne and antiseptic soap
a bottle of seltzer a bottle of gin a bottle of whisky
and toothbrush mug
a bottle of Ajax and a large pack of sleeping pills a houseplant
a pizza
and a respirator.
I want you to come now!
Only you, come now at the very latest!
And take me by storm.
Turn out the lights.
And light the candelabras.
Unplug the telephone jack.
And blow up the air mattresses.
Dry my tears and try to talk some sense into me.
When the sun sinks down behind the Opera House.
And it’s time to go home.
Then you must come to me.
With your heart.
And your shotgun.
So that I never lose my temper again.
In a tastefully furnished living room.
So I never climb onto the window ledge again.
Looking a bit stupid.
With a dog rose in my hand.
So I never creep through the subways again
with an embarrassing song.
On my broken lips.
You have to come now, now at the very latest!
Because I can’t stand it otherwise.
Because it’s so damn persistent.
Because I’m just an ordinary woman.
Healthy and moderately overweight.
Somewhat domestic, helpful, and nervous.
Kind and sweet and very scared.
With general interests and an untapped literary vein.

Additional information

Author

Hurtado, Ana

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