by Robert Bly
Your poems were truly a great and life-giving injection from straight across The Great Water. It was impossible not to translate the turtle poem, it happened seemingly all by itself. The first section is problematic, though, I’ll have to think further about it. MAD is difficult to translate. It also sounds strange in Swedish that WE wake up like a sea urchin. Does PASS mean a mountain pass or a ford (are we wading in blood?) But the rest of the poem lifts and carries so delightfully well, it’s both Dante and Walt Disney. Here in short is a first draft:
A Journey with Women
1
Floating in turtle blood, going backward and forward,
We wake up like a mad sea-urchin
On the bloody fields near the secret pass—
There the dead sleep in jars...
2
Or we go at night slowly into the tunnels of the tortoise’s claws,
Carrying chunks of the moon
To light the tunnels,
Listening for the sound of rocks falling into the sea...
3
Waking, we find ourselves in the tortoise’s beak,
As he carries us high
Over New Jersey—going swiftly
Through the darkness between the constellations...
4
At dawn we are still transparent, pulling
In the starlight;
We are still falling like a room
Full of moonlight through the air...
(RB original)
I would also like to translate the ultimate and last draft of “The Peace March” whenever it comes. I want your translation of “African Diary” for the magazine Transition (since “Hötorg art” has been corrected). I saw Mr. Rajat Neogy from Kampala when he was here—he is the editor of that Ugandan magazine—and he wanted it because “you really got something of Africa in it.” There was a convention of African writers in Stockholm recently. I was there for one day, mostly in order to see Rajat, who is an old pal of mine. Unfortunately I was forced to hear Swedish writers stand up and sing their tired old refrain—macabre. They confessed their sins (for belonging to the colonial race, for being Swedes, etc.) in an aggressive manner that astonished the Africans and made natural contact between them difficult. Lundkvist painted Sweden very black, and also informed them that a large percentage of the Swedish people were “supporting the American war in Viet-Nam.” According to the latest Gallup poll, precisely 8% of them do. I should have gotten up and said so, but was too cowardly of course.
When I read the words of encouragement in your letter I have the embarrassing sense that I’ve complained in some letter about having gotten bad reviews. No, it was only from a few directions that I was accused of having represented a “used-up literature” etc. and it feels quite good to be able to sail against the wind for a while. I’m not surfing on the waves of success this time, but still, poets may swim against the current if they can. I’m getting shouts of encouragement from many directions. Yours are worth the most, however.
Best wishes from us
Tomas T.
P.S.
The Nation was very interesting. What you say about “the iciness of desensitization” was entirely true and essential. Likewise I dream about that grasshopper’s leap.
But the poets had better shave off their beards before they visit the Bronx! They ought to come disguised as Bronx housewives. An esteemed, well turned out senator, or Dr. Spock or some baseball hero with a Colgate smile is worth several hundred beatniks in that context. It’s such an important matter.
In a few hours I will go to bed in a sleeping car and wake up in Malmö in the morning. I’ll mail this letter in Copenhagen and continue on myself to Fredericia on Jylland, where I’ll read my own work and talk with students at a folk high school [folkhögskola]. At the end of March I’m going to England for the first time in my life. Shall I convey greetings to anybody there? It will be a short visit—I’m going with a good friend who’ll be selling computers! Write soon.
Best wishes to the 5 in Odin House! TT
Västerås again, 5-4-67
Dear Robert,
I’ve been back in Sweden for 10 days and am already longing to be abroad again. I liked London, it’s an amazingly pleasant city for being so big. Most of the Englishmen were chubby little rascals (without much humor), the food was good, the sun shone. I also visited Göran Printz-Påhlson in Cambridge, where he sat sighing over the strict class system in the old English universities. It’s pure apartheid—he’s not even allowed to walk on the lawns because he isn’t a Fellow. I drank beer with some of his students—one of them by the way had translated me in Adam. They were exotic figures, which one might expect since they were studying Scandinavian languages. One of them spoke excellent Swedish. Pronounced the words not with an English but a Portuguese accent. Another had a Beatles haircut and used to take part in the Hötorget (sic!) mods riots in Stockholm in the summers. It would almost have been nice if they had had a little plastic and marshmallow in them.
In London I called Carroll up. “Oh Hello Mr Transtromrrrr, how nice of you to ring, we must get together, I should publish your poems in my press,” he began without preamble. I was completely unprepared for this and purely reflexively (reacting out of my Swedish psyche) I started to say that that was surely impossible, oh no, etc.—I all but said I was a totally worthless writer. Against the next occasion I’ll practice the correct response in such a circumstance, such as THIS IS A DAMNED GOOD IDEA or something of the sort. Unfortunately we never did meet, we weren’t free at the same times—it’s too bad, for he seems like a nice person to have a pint with. However, I met Michael Hamburger and he was exactly as good as you had described him. He was the only Englishman I came in actual contact with.
In Stockholm we’re having THE TRIBUNAL—I suppose you’ve heard about that. It’s one of those typical things that make you feel like you’ve got a big crack straight through from your scalp to your crotch. What’s tragic about it is that it could be a good thing—if it weren’t dominated by people who have hated America for many years and who can’t inspire confidence in those it really concerns, above all in the U.S.A. Then there’s all the courtroom terminology...As things stand now, facts that have been thoroughly and patiently gathered together aren’t going to have any effect when they’re presented, because it will be all too easy to dismiss them as “propaganda.” Then there’s the fact that the Tribunal has led to such atrocities as Tage Erlander (a person who happens to be our Prime Minister) almost apologizing on American TV for the Tribunal’s being allowed to come to Sweden. However, Sartre gave a good speech on Opening Day, and maybe some of the information can get through, even if presented by one-eyed fellows.
Hatred flourishes. A writer my own age—and previously a very close friend of mine—said recently at a meeting that it would be a great misfortune if Johnson stopped the bombing of North Vietnam, since hatred of the U.S. would then diminish (I didn’t hear this myself, it was reported in the paper). This is the Year of the hawks, on all sides.
I would rather sound a little less gloomy. Eric Sellin wrote in his last letter that it was of course always nice to get a letter from me, but that what I wrote always had the effect of deepening the gloom he felt about the world situation. I’m also sending you a fantastically gloomy poem (though it has a hopeful curl at the end). I have trouble getting going (it’s that CRACK) and have to write some shit out of my system first. I hope that soon, in the spring, in the summer, something will happen: the bung will fall out of the barrel and My Life’s Work will come pouring out, something tremendously long and tremendously concentrated ah...
Send more little magazines and signs of life! The portrait gallery of famous American poets was fantastic. What mature physiognomies! I’d quite like to have a beer with Donald Hall. (I notice that I often return to the subject of beer2—one of Sweden’s faults is that we drink too little
beer here.) Monica and the little ones say hello.
Your friend,
Tomas T.
10 June, ’67
Dear Tomas,
Here it is, lovely wet old spring. It has been raining for 10 days, and my Norwegian soul (or my mildew) is just beginning to feel comfortable. I’m home for the summer—no more hopping about! I just jump around inside my head now—leaping from ear to ear, jumping on the sofas inside my brain—springs poking out in all directions, legs fallen off—
I’m glad you met Michael Hamburger. He’s awfully ethereal compared to his extroverted, meaty name. A sweet man.
I just sent back page proofs on my new book—it will be ready in another month or so, and I’ll send you a copy then.
My translation of Hamsun’s Hunger is out too, but I won’t send you a copy—it’s better in Norwegian!
The Stockholm trial got almost no publicity here. I have the clear feeling by the way that we are losing—not only politically, but militarily—in Vietnam. The Marine commander has been removed. Letters I get from soldiers in Vietnam (who write poetry and send me some at times) are full of disgust and despair—much more so than a year ago.
Thank you for the wall-stumbling-along-in-the-street poem. Very odd. It is frightening when the empty houses gather as an army.
Write soon. Forgive my long gaps—I’ll send some poems next time.
Runmarö 7-11-67 A.D. MCMLXVII
Dear Robert,
as you see, I’ve moved out to our cottage on the island in the archipelago for the next while. We’re on vacation. I forgot my typewriter but have found an old one from the beginning of the century, in one of the houses in the village. The type is hard to read, but has a sentimental value of its own. The keys are trembling with age—an old man’s trembling fingers—he’s a faithful old worn-out worker called CORONA. Me, I feel significantly younger than I did last year at this time, better than for a good long while, actually. Now something will finally get done! I’ll start by finishing a first version of your wonderful president poem. By now Sonnevi has published at least three of your poems in the Swedish press, I only two (it’s 3–2 in Sonnevi’s favor). His latest was “As the Asian War Begins” in our only young writers’ magazine, Komma. It’s a good translation. [------] I can also inform you from Sweden that there is another Viet-Nam conference in Stockholm and this time I’ve contributed a little sum of money, which I didn’t do at the [Bertrand] Russell Tribunal. The person who made the biggest impression this time was Dr. Spock. Has there been anything in the U.S. press about this conference? Spock asked the Swedes to come up with something besides demonstrations in the streets to influence opinion (in the U.S.). Maybe we should do something for the tourists? I’ve thought myself that a torrent of sober, well-brought-up letters to the editors of Time and Life from all over Europe might do some good.
Today the big trees around our house are full of wind. It’s blowing so hard that green caterpillars keep falling into my coffee cup. I love the constant sound of it, the rising and falling—it only goes to show that I’m no real sailor. My grandmother (who was born in 1860) always got melancholy and uneasy when the wind moaned in the trees. She would think of the people in small boats out on the water hereabouts. Grandfather, who was a pilot, took himself to and from the big boats in a little rowboat with a sail. Once, in the 1890s, he was hired to sail a Stockholm gentleman from Runmarö to Stockholm. The passenger turned out to be Strindberg. My grandfather could only say about him afterwards that he was “a nice man.”
Dear Robert, let me hear from you soon! Every time you go poaching with your Swedish net you should think about your Swedish readers and friends and remember that it’s time to send something over. Monica sends her best, as do I, to the whole family.
Tomas
P.S. I’m enclosing a poem,3 which jumped into me during a car trip in Dalarna, right before Midsummer. Of course, from a Sixties point of view it’s a scandal, since it is mostly iambic.—When is Sixties coming out, by the way? The greedy public waits impatiently to snatch the new issue out of the bookmonger’s hands!
Krylbo 8-8-67
Dear Robert,
I write in haste to hurry you up—I would like to submit “3 presidents” to a magazine and want to know if you approve of it or if you want anything changed. I’m also sending you some documents from Sweden. Lasse Söderberg’s translations are of a rather good quality, particularly the first poem. In addition I have the pleasure of telling you that Söderberg is more than six feet tall. My own poem is a relapse into the Tranströmeresque “archipelago style” which can’t be condemned too harshly. I’m only sending it as a testimonial to what a beautiful vacation I had, out among the islands.
I’m writing this during a work trip to a BORSTAL in the forest.
Have Myrdal’s articles appeared anywhere in the American press? What he writes is purely self-evident, but since he seems to have a—perhaps undeserved—reputation in the U.S., maybe they could do some good.
Warmest greetings
Tomas
7 Sept, ’67
Dear Tomas,
Forgive my slowness! I get slow and lethargic in August, like the sap in trees, and besides, I’ve been sick! (Read Alan Watts—his Nature, Man and Woman is a wonderful book—if it’s not in Swedish, let me know, and I’ll send you a copy in English.)
Your translation of “Three Presidents” is wonderful, and I haven’t a single criticism. If you are doubtful about “resilient”—I could say this—the line suggests that the air is mentally very quick. It can choose from many alternatives, and is flexible, and able to think fast. If a rock comes up in its path, it just doesn’t run head-on into it, like a bull or Lyndon Johnson, but it may sidestep it, go around it swiftly.
Thank you for the Myrdal articles and the new poems! I love that blue lamp. Two nights ago a friend, a potter who knows Swedish, came by heading for San Francisco and we spent the whole evening huddled happily over your I det fria. I like the poems immensely, and am determined to translate it. So I have some questions for you, Dad.
Is the bulpong tarning a cube (as they are in the U.S.) or just a rectangle?
By stark do you wish to suggest “uncompromising”?
In “De myllrar i solgasset” do you want the English reader to see the crawling action of ants (or insects) or their busyness?
The man who “sitter pa faltet oah rotar”—is he sitting down? on a chair? What is he doing? Raking? Or digging with a stick?
The “ogonblicksbild”—that word isn’t in my dictionary! Does it refer to the shutter action of a fast camera? Does it refer to the shutter action of a fast camera?
Does the letter put the speaker in the position for a while of the man digging on whom the shadow of the cross falls? The image of the cross in the airfield is a wonderful image, but something very ominous clings to it.
Write soon!
Your old friend
Västerås 9-30-67
Dear Robert,
it was good to get your letter, thanks! I had an uneasy feeling that something had happened to you, that you were sick or something of the sort. (I don’t have such a romantically dreadful idea of the U.S. that I believed you’d been arrested!)
[------]
In other news, we’ve acquired a pet, a guinea pig named Tyra. Our guinea pig became very good friends with the English poet Jon Silkin, who was here fourteen days ago—he was in the process of putting together a Sweden issue of Stand. (He was very satisfied with your translations of me.) After a day or so I drove him to Uppsala and left him with the co-editor of BLM. First we visited a fairly notable novelist that Silkin wanted to include. The novelist just sat like a depressive Buddha, mumbling that he hadn’t written anything worth reading. In other words he had been smitten with political sickness. Swedish literary life is filled primarily with people who beat their breasts, damn literature, and promise to mend
their ways. Many sleep with Mao’s Little Red Book on their bedside tables. I speak of the cultural scene of course; society is otherwise becoming increasingly bourgeois and we will have a conservative victory next fall. I feel in great need of that book by Alan Watts, Robert! It’s not to be found in Sweden. (However there’s another one, on Zen Buddhism, checked out of the library.) My contact with the universe nowadays consists primarily in walking around in the woods hunting mushrooms (MUSHROOM-POWER!), woods that unfortunately aren’t so far out that you can’t hear the breathing of industry. But there are mushrooms everywhere, even a few yards from the cathedral and library in the middle of the city. They say there are some unusually big fat mushrooms in the churchyard...
And now your questions about old “In the Open.” Bouillon cubes in Sweden are usually shaped like this:
in other words not cubes exactly but four-edged in any event. (“Rektangel” evokes surface, not volume.) Birgitta Steene, who made a first version of the poem, translated it “auburn box.” STARK just generally means strong; here the closest word would be concentrated. She translated “Myllrar i solgasset” as “teem in the blazing sun,” as I recall—I haven’t got the translation here. The word myllra in Swedish gives a rather strong feeling of urgent crowding, however, something rather physical and also with certain associations of anthills (as you will recall, we have large anthills in this country). And then the man who sits ROOTING AROUND. Root [rotar] is a rather weak word, it means that he pokes, touches, or digs in the soil, but you can’t really see what he’s doing—the distance is great. I don’t remember if I was conscious of this then, but after the poem was written I couldn’t help associating it with the Vietnamese peasants. Halberstam describes in his Making of a Quagmire how he flies at a low altitude over the landscape and how some farmer pretends not to notice the plane, because the Vietnamese peasants have now learned that if they leap up and run for cover they’ll be shot, as they will then be considered to be “Viet Cong.” As it happens I read Halberstam after writing those lines; it gave me a sort of déjà vu experience. But that last part of the poem is in no way invented, it is SEEN, it is The Lion’s Tail and Eyes. If the airplane cross in the first lines is something dangerous, threatening, negative, I understand the cross in the concluding lines as something positive, helpful, but at the same time violently elusive-recursive, something nearer to us than anything and also something we can only glimpse for an instant, not hang on to. Commenting on all this gets to be rather rhetorical and feeble, it must be seen, and you can probably see better than anyone else.
