by Robert Bly
1970
1-4-70
Dear Robert,
I’m writing in Swedish this time to keep you in practice. Thanks for a long and shimmering letter! But the letter with the long Vietnam poem has gotten lost in transit. Probably it’s been hijacked by someone and has flown to Cuba. I don’t know what “Field” is either. Is it a contraction of “Snowy Fields”? How fantastic it must be to travel around the whole U.S.A. and storm against the administration and give public readings. And then disappear into the wilderness to do nothing for a thousand years. Politician and Guru in the same person, traveling together like Laurel and Hardy.
By surface mail (since I’m poor and stingy) I’m now sending my German translation and Ekelöf’s posthumous book—he wrote it while he was dying of lung cancer. The good thing about the German translation is that Michael Hamburger wrote a letter to me (after 3 years) in which he started to intimate something about the possibility of my being invited to England. He asked me to send the best English translations I had and I then discovered that I haven’t got any copies of the translations we did together on Runmarö. Can you send a few of the best?
I’m an idiot! I forgot about Pilinszky’s address! But I’ll very likely get a letter from him and will make a note of the address then. He speaks French and German very well, not English.
Tomas Tranströmer was born on April 15, 1931. The exact moment I don’t know. For God’s sake, drop astrology! We have enough misfortunes threatening us as it is.
I’ll write again soon but am sending a new poem. The word “sisu” probably isn’t in your dictionary. It’s Finnish and is used mostly in the context of sports, especially when describing Finnish athletes. It means something like “tenacity.”
The family sends best wishes. We long to see you all again someday, go sailing around the world! In any case it’s good that you exist.
Tomas
undated (postmarked January 13, 1970)
Dear Tomas,
I answer your letter soon! Meanwhile I send you copies of some translations right away!
Field is the name of the best new poetry magazine—out of Oberlin—which has 3 of your poems in the first issue, you are as popular in Oberlin 16 Jan, ’70
American poet confused by the world
Dear Tomas,
I found a letter of yours with two poems and a translation of the Barn in Devon!
So I’ll answer a couple of questions there while I am at my “writingmachine,” as you Europeans call it.
This was a stone barn I found while walking in far south England, where there are these marvellous green hills that simply plunge straight into the Atlantic! They roll about a bit like a woman’s stomach and then down they go! I really think the sense of a woman’s stomach must have been in my head even then, because the barn had an overwhelming feeling of a place where we prepare to return to life again, rest a bit before we return to the womb and are born.
In “järteckan” I wanted to suggest that the hoofmarks in heavy dung outside the door are not to be taken as a symbol that the body is filthy, or that life is rotten; they are no symbol of fleshly evil.
The “doors” are those wooden separations, that cattlemen use when they are separating cows into two bunches: two men stand behind it, one man behind each end, and either move it in front of the cow’s nose as he comes up, discouraging him to go back, or open it suddenly so the cow goes through. They are easy to lift, usually about eight or ten feet long. They usually have fresh wood showing somewhere, since they are leaned against walls, and knocked down by the cows later, one of whom always steps on it, and cracks off a piece.
Anyway, the “gate” or whatever you call it, looked so useful, so humble, so lacking in egotism, that it was holy, like an altar. (I’m thinking mainly of those small table-altars on which the Buddhists set their flowers and incense and Buddha-statues.)
“Flopping down” suggests the way a cow lies down, without thinking of manners or whether anyone is watching: it’s a wonderful sight.
The stones that make up the walls of the barn evidently turn at night into the walls of the womb, dark, and to the infant, invisible.
I have just started with “Preludier,” but I have a couple of questions already. The pronouns in “Tvä sanningar” are difficult for me. In the second stanza, does “den” imply a human being, or one of the two “sanningar” mentioned in the stanza before? I’m not sure I understand the third line of the second stanza, “Vad some helst, etc.”
I don’t understand “det” in “Och det är en bat.”
Does the fourth stanza take place completely away from the boat land-ing—in a house in the middle of the woods, for example—or does it take place near the water?
Does this boat hook hit any of the dancers? (I know what you’ll say: “Why I really don’t know!”)
The poem about your old apartment and your mother’s apartment is very moving at the end. The telescope, the Quaker thought, and the doves cooing are marvellous.
In that poem, I wonder if you could give me a literal English version of the second sentence—“rader sorg” throws me into confusion.
I’ve done a new version of the rocket-shaver poem! Will send it soon. We think a lot about rockets over here—must have to do with the American virility-complex. Shaving of course is a clear reference to castration-desire—Freud told me that only yesterday. I use the old blade-razor myself—Aaaaaaaaaah! (Of course if your shaving poem is really a castration poem, it makes the pilot’s remark more sensible: “You’re seeing this for the last time!”)
(By the way, I still have one question on that poem: “I kamerans barndom.” Does that mean the early days of the camera when everyone had to hold still for so long; or does it refer to the way children pose so stiffly for photographs?)
Give my love to your beautiful, good, and desirable wife, och flickorna...
(be careful with those razor poems)
Den Norske Medicine-Man
Robert
20 Jan, ’70
Dear Tomas,
I’ve enjoyed your Hen Poem! The seam to the Africa scene may be a little too prominent—I’m not sure. I’ll have to read it ten more times. Also when you say “ette minne” it sounds like the world-traveller bragging. (Naturally those of us who haven’t been to Africa are envious, and hate to have you reminding us of it.) Couldn’t that scene be a dream, instead of memory? (We all have dreams!)
“Enligit reglerna”—does that mean “according to the rules”?
I’m not sure how to understand two phrases particularly: “sanninger fran 1912,” and “ett balansnummer.”
But I like it very much! It is eerie, and mysterious, and all the hen section is true to hens. I love hens, and I get terribly cross if writers don’t get true hendom into their hen-lines. You have done beautifully!
Field should come soon. It is 40 below here this morning. I am working hard. How lazy I am! That must be a Capricorn failing...or maybe a Norwegian-no-longer-having-to-grub-out-trees-in-the-cold-rain-failing. There’s no doubt, the Norwegians have got it too good over here. I’ve got to do more work! It’s a disgrace! One book every five years...laziness!
Write soon!
Your slothful friend,
Robert
Västerås 1-30-70
Dear Robert,
GOOD GRIEF!
Wow!
“The Teeth Mother” has come and I’m knocked out. It is incredibly strong, it’s as if Walt Whitman had been with you, whispering in your ear to give you strength to write on. I’ve read large parts of the poem before in various versions but this compilation is superior. (Except the beginning of section II with the Roman knives—I can imagine that the version in The Light Around is lying underneath and providing resonance.) The poem lives both in its details and as a whole. Most remarkable is VI since it is so naively direct and yet strikes so deeply in
to the soul. But after this you can’t write anything else about Viet Nam. This poem has the character of ULTIMATE, LAST, FINAL STATEMENT. The strangest thing about the poem is that in its incredible bitterness and sorrow it makes the reader feel such love for life, the earth, everything that moves. Strange. Lucky for you that you live protected by snowstorms and all those miles of prairie in Minnesota, so that fame won’t get to be too trying. It must be dreadful to fall into the clutches of that great American fame, all the microphones being thrust at you etc. How do you deal with it? DO YOU HAVE A STOMACH OF THE RIGHT SIZE BY NOW? WHEN A PERSON GETS FAMOUS HE DEVELOPS HIS STOMACH AS AN ACT OF SELF-PROTECTION.
I’ve just driven Emma to the stables and seen to it that she got her favorite horse, a black pony by the name of Sotha. The children ride round and round on the sawdust for almost nothing. Monica is home doing homework. She’s actually begun to study so she can apply to nursing school in a year or so. Svärmor (mother-in-law) is living in the house for the time being to watch the kids when we’re both away. I am somewhat over-excited, owing to the fact that I’m getting ready for a new trip at the expense of the Swedish Institute. Monica says that trips behind THE IRON CURTAIN give me the opportunity to develop the latent paranoia I have. I CAN SMELL A TRAP AT A FAR DISTANCE.
Thanks for the transcriptions of the poetry translations! When I made copies to send to Hamburger I discovered something that’s probably a mistake. In “Night Duty” section II you write “The language marches imperfect step with the boots” but in Swedish it goes “the language marches in step with the boots”—should be “in perfect step.” What I mean of course is that voices on the radio and in politics and public life in general speak a language that marches all too well with the executioners and therefore I, we, must seek a new language that does not collaborate with the executioners.
No. 2 of “Preludes” should go more or less like this in rough translation:
Two truths walk towards one another. One (of the truths) comes from the outside and one from the inside
(and at the place) where they meet you have a chance to catch sight of yourself.
But he (the person, the one) who sees what is going to happen cries in despair:
“Anything! (May anything happen, I can take anything except that) if only I escape knowing myself.”
What it means is of course—you have the truth of your inner world (you Robert must understand that) and there is the truth of the outer world. When there is a confrontation of the two your true character is exposed, at this confrontation you get a glimpse of “WHO I AM.” And most people are afraid of that, they want to have the two worlds apart. They can take a lot of suffering, build endlessly defense mechanisms and barriers, even risk their life to escape knowing themselves. “Vadsomhelst” is a typical Swedish colloquialism. “Vadsomhelst, if only my boy gets well” says a mother in desperation to the doctor, for example. It’s a contraction of something much longer, for example “Anything [Vad som helst] would be better than not to...” Or “I can stand anything [vad som helst] except not to...”
[Editor’s note: The following seems to be a continuation, though something may be missing.]
And there is a boat trying to put in (trying to land), trying exactly along here. It will try thousands of times. From the darkness of the wood comes a boat-hook, pushed in through the open window, in among the party guests who have been dancing until they were are warm (getting warm by dancing) eller warmed up by dancing...The boathook is something totally foreign in the party milieu, it’s something from another world, perhaps from Gallilee, it’s frightening, a bit comical also, it’s religious. I don’t know whether these modern party guests are struck by it, maybe I’m the only one who actually sees it come shooting mysteriously in through the window (as if a boat were floating out in the darkness of the forest, trying to land).
Part III.
The apartment where I lived most part of my life is going to be evacuated. Is it now empty of everything. The anchor has let go (has got free, has loosened lost its grip—on the bottom of the sea)—although there still is (a state of ) mourning, it is the lightest flat in the whole city. The truth does not need furniture etc. “råder” means “prevails.” You know it is shortly after a death and I am mourning but at the same time a lightness is experienced. You have to leave all this, what is of value is transformed in a sort of light perhaps. For the last time I see my old apartment just as naked as it was when I saw it the first time: blown out, empty. Light only, memories are vanishing...
From the other poem [“Open Window”]: “I kamerans barndon” means the early days of camera when we had to sit still for many seconds to get pictured. This is a beautiful expression in Swedish—we often say “the childhood of the car” etc., it gives an atmosphere of tenderness to these technical things. I have never heard the expression “the childhood of the atomic bomb” but it could be possible. In Swedish.
I went through The Teeth-mother together with Monica this afternoon. (a prima vista translation) The words I did not know I replaced with my own inventions, I read aloud. We were very moved. The only thing I am skeptical about is the title.
(Monica has large front teeth but she is definitely not a teeth-mother.)
(Cartoon caption: A memory of Africa has just popped up...J.M., trans)
About the Hen poem (its title is now “Upprätt”—“upright”). The African memory is authentic—I have been to Chad and I must tell it! Few Swedes have been there. (I have longed for such a long time to tell it.) I am glad you have the right sense for hens. I had 4 hens last summer. “Enligt reglerna” is “according to the rules”—the poultry house is a society with strict rules, and the poor birds follow them in an almost neurotic rigidity. They are our sisters.—“sannigar från 1912” is simply “truths of 1912,” those years before World War I, when ladies had large hats with (ostrich) plumes, bourgeois rules etc. “Balansnummer” is “balancing act.” The poem is partly a protest-poem against the prevailing mood in Swedish intellectual life. What I say is that finding the truth, being honest etc. is a difficult individualistic act of balance, you have to put off the rhetoric, all slogans and mustaches and prejudices and...Just like being before Death. (But I did not introduce Charon in the poem.)
Thank you for telling the Field people to send their magazine (it has not arrived yet) For some strange reason I am always published in NR 1 issues. Are you starting a whole plantation of magazines around U.S.A.? I like to be present in the babyhood of a magazine. Tell Carol the kindest greetings from us. Give everyone a royal HUG [KLEMM], as it’s certainly called in Norway. Your confused
friend
Tomas
Västerås 4-2-70
Dear friend,
since you are my impresario I must have some orientation about all these magazines you have. I love the effete snob magazines I have seen and am very happy to be buried in them. Yes, if we had only ONE of them in our poor country! The enthusiasm you see in a line like this—from Mr DiPalma—“I want to make Doones nr 3 something more than just another collection of contemporary poems and translations,” this enthusiasm is real, it is good, not the usual tired businessman attitude of most people in the book-publishing trade. Another thing he wrote made me a little nervous: “what you had to say about Tranströmer interested me.” What have you written? Have you tried to make me interesting? Until I get Field I expect biographical notations like this:
Tomas Tranströmer is a 67 year old Maoistic sewing machine repairer of mixed Lappish-Jewish origin from Kiruna. He now is a political refugee in Norway.
or:
Tomas Tranströmer is 14 years old and has written 3 novels but in Sweden he is best known as a composer. His chamber opera “The Quiet Don,” based upon Sholokhov’s novel, will soon be performed in Baden-Baden.
or:
Tomas Tranströmer died recently in Mexico. He also published novels under the pen name of B. Traven.<
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After many years of silence Leif Sjöberg sent me a letter and told me that he was working for a magazine called Stony Brook. From some advertisement-quotation he sent I understood that this was the best thing ever printed, anywhere.
Your translation of “Outskirts” seems to be excellent. The last line is probably not a quotation from King James Bible (it sounds to me more like the uttering of a New Jersey mafia leader) but it is good anyhow.
It is almost midnight. Good night!
Yours
aff. Tomas
9 Feb, ’70
Dear Tomas,
Would you check this translation, oh master? It is wonderfully exciting in English. I recited it to Carolyn, and her eyes shone like children’s eyes listening to pirate stories...of course we love to hear about the Russian Revolution over here—it makes us shiver deliciously in our beds...But it is a marvellous poem!
“imperfect step” is a typing error by my forbannade typist, R.B.; he should have typed “in perfect step.”
Your remarks on the new poems were very helpful. Of course I understand how it is with you world travellers—your memories of Africa just come bursting out, they can’t be stopped, it’s like a person with a high fever shuddering, he just can’t stop it...like pain in a gall-bladder attack...
Of all things, a check came today from Bonniers for 100 English pounds, for the “advance” on something called Poems. It must be Krig og tystnad they are talking about. And here I thought the Swedes were efficient!
Thank you for your words on “Teeth-Mother.” (The Teeth-Mother is the Great Mother in her Medusa, or teeth side, positively a metaphysical being, and no slander of living women intended!) (Monica is the Great Mother as GOOD Mother, anyway, she is the Mother With The Blue Cloak the old painters used to paint in the 16th Century.) I appreciated your words on the poem so much. I worked on it so long, that now I am indecisive about it, and lack confidence.
