by Robert Bly
Love Tomas
31 Oct, 85
Dear Tomas,
It is Halloween, and your godson has just finished setting up a horrible sight outdoors—a masked figure with military hat and old coat obviously thinking frightful things—to frighten the little ones coming for Milky Ways. Micah by the way is the only one home now; he is a freshman in high school. Noah is working for the infamous E. F. Hutton stockbrokers in New York, living with Mary in an apartment in the East Village. He loves New York, and is planning to start college next fall. Biddy is in Boston, working for an advertising agency at the moment. I’ll see them all in a few days, because my November tour—the only long one this year—is about to begin. I so long to stay home the night before such prospects—every detail of the house looks inviting; why should Ruth get to stay home and not me...is this something from a previous life? etc....
I like your translation of “Night Winds” very much! The woodshed is a small building where on the old farms the wood used to be stored—firewood. It is abandoned because people no longer use it for that, or, usually, for anything. Besides, “abandoned woodshed” is a Romantic phrase, primarily in its sound, I guess. I rewrote the poem about sixty times but always kept that phrase and the “ant with his small (or narrow) waist.” Don Hall hates the “mad and sleepy cork” line, and says mad people don’t feel like that at all...but of course this is a psychological insight into the feeling life of corks...some people just don’t sympathize with corks...
I will send books to Bei Dao, as suggested. I love the sound in the first stanza of “Alkaiskt.” The Shanghai poem looks fine, so far, but I have two copies of Part III and none of Part II—so I must have a Part II!!! Will we see you this year?
Love to Monica...
Robert
P.S. I wrote a fan letter to John F. Deane—fine translations of the Wild Marketplace!
1986
Västerås 14 March -86
Dear Robert,
I am longing to hear from you. Monica and I are going to the U.S.A. at the end of this month—I have readings in Washington DC and Tucson and N.Y. Maybe you are crossing the country at the same time, ships that pass in the night, whales that swim in the ocean, comets that fly in the sky...
Monica needs this trip [worse] than I do. She is too busy with her job here, as a refugee-nurse. Too much for a man, even for a woman. The people come from Iran mostly, some from Iraq and some from Lebanon. Some have invisible holes after bullets. In the evenings we sit together and talk about them. I sometimes feel a little weak from that and was on a thorough health control the other day. I was found absolutely healthy. My blood pressure was better than before (150/100). Don’t fall asleep when I am talking about my health!!
Here are 2 poems from your latest book. “Älgen” has got a Swedish version that satisfies me. “Nattgrodor” is immediately interesting, one of your deepest poems, and causes me problems. Something I have not translated and don’t understand is why the loons wheel cries THROUGH LOWER WATERS. If you cry “through” water you must sit under, in, the water. Or is “through” an American preposition for “across”? Another word I am not sure about is LANDING in the last stanza. Tell me!
I have showed the 2 translations together with the previous one (Night winds) to the editor of Lyrikvännen and he wants to publish them soon. So please give me an opinion.
Here is an American address you can write to if you answer before the end of this month: You can send the letter to Lois Shelton’s Poetry Center in Tucson—I suppose you have the address. We will stay there around April 7–10.
We are awfully interested in having you come to Sweden this year. We have so much to talk about! I would love to introduce you to my two grown up lady-daughters.
Monica sends her warmest!
Love
Tomas
P.S. If somebody thought he could destabilize the country by killing Palme he was wrong.
19 March, 86
Dear Tomas,
Thank you for your letter! I have been with you if not in spirit then in error and confusion lately, for I gave a talk at a Conference on Translation in Tempe, Arizona recently using texts of your poems—especially “Right here I was nearly killed one night in February”—and my efforts to avoid total error! I found many of your admirers, including Heim, who translates Kundera, and William Arrowsmith, who translates everything...lately a marvellous version of Montale.
Wouldn’t it be fun if we could meet somewhere in April! I’ll be home here until the fifth of April, when I go to Boston, for a Kabir concert with an Indian dancer on the 6th. Then I’ll be in Boston and Maine that week before going down to New York on the 14th, where I read at the YMHA Poetry Center that night. I’ll be in New York the rest of that week, mostly at Saul Galin’s...212-222-0786. In Boston around the 6th, 7th and 8th I’ll be with Biddy in her apartment on the North End. Her tel # is 617720-3868. I’ll call you at Tucson too. Where will you be before you go to Tucson on the 7th? And Monica will be with you! How grand! To repeat my plan: (Ruth will be in New York too one weekend)
Boston, April 6–10 (then Pennsylvania)
New York, April 14–19
Of course I would love it if you both could come here for a day or two (before 5th or after 19th). Carol is only three or four miles away, so you could see us all at one crack. And your godson Micah is here! He is a freshman now, and just this week got five A’s from judges in his “discussion.” He is teaching me computers.
I like the two new translations. “Älgen” seems absolutely right as it is. Question about “Night Frogs”: “The loons wheel cries through lower waters”...This is an odd sentence in English. Loons have a curious cry, which they often give just before diving. So the suggestion here is that they continue this cry while swimming under water, and this image merges with an image of those small flying saucers “wheeling” through the ocean depths, as they are said to do. We also say that a man “wheels” a wheelbarrow. So the loons are “wheeling” the cry ahead of them, as if it were a sack of grain.
In the 5th stanza, the wire could be a wire for a musical instrument, a string, as they are called, or an industrial wire. It has been thinned apparently to get a higher pitch. The last line in that stanza should give a sort of blow to the stomach, a deflation. I feel that each time I say the line. Expecting honesty from me is hopeless. Being honest is a state of soul; it is not quite the same thing as honesty, which is a noun. I’m sure you understand me.
I think you’ve got “the landing” right. I am walking up and down the shore of a river, perhaps with muddy banks. At a certain place there is a smoothed down patch of shore where people pull up boats. Maybe it has a wooden platform too.
“Robert looking toward the ‘old landing.’”
I felt the longing to call you when Palme was shot. It makes everyone feel lonely.
Love to you both,
Robert
August 4, 1986
Dear Tomas,
We are finally home, and more or less recovered from our funny Scandinavian trip. You know we went to Oslo after we saw you, then rented a car in Oslo and parked it in front of an Italian restaurant. Within 15 minutes the Oslo police had towed it away—we are too dense for the subtlety of their No Parking signs—and an hour after that, we had to pay $110 to get it released from its mythological prison somewhere else in that vast city. We then drove up to Jotunheimen to embark on a famous walk, which I had heard of for years, from a Norwegian walking hut over some hills to another. The walk was listed as 7 hours. Little did I know that this was a special listing created by muscle types for other muscle types. Delicate nervous system types deserve a completely different time table—perhaps even a different map. We started out at 8:30 in the morning, laboring uphill with rests every 10 minutes, and were constantly passed by disgustingly healthy types running along under heavy packs, frightening the sheep. By 2 o’clock we had gone only ⅓
of the way, and by 4 o’clock Ruth’s knee gave out, so that she had to move it by pulling on the cloth of her trousers to get it to lift. This slowed us down a little, as you can imagine. Now we were being passed by muscle types who had probably started at 2 in the afternoon. One girl actually ran by with her Olympic trainer. By 7 o’clock we were telling these people to warn the cooks that 2 hungry people were slowly approaching. We got in, finally, at 9:30, after 13 hours on the path. This teaches one to read those maps and recommended hours with the sort of suspicion with which one reads political speeches. Actually, we limped around the mountain hut and its environs for two days, and had quite a nice time as the resident invalids. After that we got back out, drove to see my relatives in Hardanger. [------] After that we stayed at an old wooden hotel at Utne for several days, then drove to Oslo and saw Ruth’s relatives. One was a marvelous old woman who had been blind since 4, and had taught 38 years in the School for the Blind in Oslo. She reminded me of those people at the end of your car-wreck poem, only instead of being seen too much, she had the most amazingly wrinkled face—intricate and ancient—as if from never having been seen at all. Perhaps we keep wrinkles out of our faces only because we know what we look like in the mirror or in other people’s eyes. Perhaps all people before mirrors had astoundingly wrinkled faces. She had a beautiful dignity, and it was grand to see her strong face.
After that we came back to New York and then to Connecticut, where we attended James Hillman’s 60th birthday party. This was not so intimate as the party we had out on Gatan. The first day there were 50 people and the second day another 25, and on the third day friends drove in from all the near states, especially New Jersey. 150 people cluttered up the lawn on the third day. It cured Ruth from planning such an event for my 60th birthday. I think she has decided on a quiet dinner for 4. The most astounding event of this extravaganza happened on Saturday night when James, dressed in white shirt and pants with a cane, suddenly appeared on a small stage and, working with his teacher, delivered a 20 minute tap dance to the tune of the St. Louis Blues. It turns out that all his life, since he was 6 or so and saw tap dancing in Atlantic City, he had longed to tap dance in public. For the last six months he had practiced five to six hours a day and he did it. This was a grand inspiration for me, like seeing Michelangelo for the first time.
The dearest thing we did, however, on the entire trip was the visit with you and Monica and the children at Runmarö. We appreciated so much your generosity in wanting us to be there at all, and your hospitality and the opportunity to see the Swedish folk-soul appear under the boat for a moment—the boat of the grass, that is. We especially loved walking past that house nearby and seeing the Swedes in their suits and ties sitting at their tables with the candles lit. So thank you both once more!
I have all sorts of questions to ask you about Robert Hass’s suggestions, which in general are excellent. I don’t have lots of questions, only 4, and I’ll type them in a second onto a special sheet. This letter has been typed by Mary Bly, and I’m sure you’ve already guessed that someone more clever than I was doing this letter (Yes of course—the typist!)
Ruth often tells the story of mid-summer and how much she enjoyed Monica, the island, the whole warm glad time.
Love
Robert
Dear Tomas:
Here are the four questions:
in “Posteringen”:
Jeg stryker längs varma ögonblick...This has puzzled even Robert Hass’s informant. She thinks it may suggest swimming in warm currents in a river...Suppose I said:
“I snuggle up to warm moments, but I can’t stay there long.”
In “Den skingrade församlingen”:
sewage pipes or drainage pipes?
sewage pipes definitely call up shit in English
drainage pipes imply more shower drainage pipes, kitchen pipes, pipes draining a marsh or roof or cellar.
“For Matts and Laila”:
Resan fortsätter. Robert says my sentence sounds “too translated.” Could I say:
Everything keeps moving.? If I say, the trip goes on, it sounds translated again, and it is as if not only your trip continues, but the Date Line and so on.
“Minusgrader”...“unknowing forest of flickering faces” or “unaware forest of flickering faces.” The second, which I found for the Sierra Club edition, is more startling and suggests that something in the faces and bodies of the people is highly unconscious—there’s much they are not aware of.
unknowing forest implies that they are a little more like animals, people who have never been to school, with vast areas of total ignorance.
I lay these questions humbly at your feet, and will await your reply! In an hour Noah and I start for the Salmon River in Idaho, for our six day white-water trip...Eek! But it’s our last time to be together before he leaves for college.
Love to you both
Robert
Uppsala 11 Sept. -86
Dear Robert,
I am here working on Psalms 37 and 38 and I cannot resist writing to you on the impeccable Bible Commission paper...First: Monica and I have you and Ruth fresh in our memories, it was a wonderful end of the taxing spring and a good start of the restful summer to have you here. We had the best July for many years. In August problems returned. Monica’s sister, Bibbi, had a cerebral hemorrhage, a so called ANEURYSM, got operated on and as a result of the operation had a stroke that caused total aphasia. Now speech gradually returns and I saw her the other day in the hospital. It was not so bad as I expected. In spite of the speech difficulties her personality had not changed. It was like meeting a friend who had a broken leg. Strange that such a handicap does not take away the personality! The prognosis is thought to be rather good.
I am overburdened with DUTIES and also with gratitude to Bob Hass. He has been working a lot. At least I could answer your questions about
STRYKER LÄNGS VARMA ÖGONBLICK
“Stryker” means pass, stroke, sometimes rub. What do you say when you describe a bird flying close to a hillside. Or a cat touching your legs. Or a hand stroking a fur. Choose what you like. “I pass along warm moments” is possible, but maybe a little too abstract. It should be a sensuous touch too.
KLOAKTRUMMOR
probably “sewage pipes” is the right word. Should be pipes with large diameter, the kind of pipes you have under the streets, under a city.
RESAN FORTSÄTTER I don’t mind if the reader has the impression that not only my trip goes on. Primarily it is my trip, but secondarily it is the dateline, the world, History, galaxies etc. etc.
OVETANDE SKOGEN As you describe the difference between “unaware” and “unknowing” I find that “unaware” is probably the right word.
I have to hurry. Let us write more letters this autumn! Monica is in Västerås, but I send her love too to you and Ruth. We want to hug you both soon again!
Tomas
October 3, 1986
Dear Tomas,
Thank you for your letter and the four details about translations. To my surprise, I got a request the other day to translate some Psalms. This thing must be catchy, and we will lose our amateur status if this keeps up. What would our Sixties friends think of us? Mary is home with us this week and she is typing this letter to you (hello Tomas!) in her free time between work on her new detective novel. Biddy has gone to Barcelona to teach English to short dark-haired foreigners. Micah has been giving me instruction today on the new computer that a Bush grant in Minneapolis purchased for me. All of this enormous technological machinery—and I use it simply to run off eighty-five-syllable poems. I’ll enclose the first two poems I ran off. The dragon poem has 85 syllables, but I haven’t counted the other. I heard rumors that you’re going to join me on April 11th in San Francisco—that would be nice. The audiences in San Francisco are so enthusiastic that they believe they understand Swedish. This must be a common human failing,
because I noticed that the people in Stockholm pretended that they understood English. Ruth is away today, teaching for the first time at a women’s Conference—She refuses to be pulled in by all those extroverts, however, so she is teaching dream interpretation woman by woman in a house with a smoky fireplace. Noah is at Harvard, just beginning, with the same teacher for Samuel Johnson that I had 37 years ago. Is there anything I can send you from those of us with such long life here in the land of milk and honey?
Love to you both,
Robert
1987
June 28, 1987
Dear Tomas,
Summer has begun at last! I suppose you are out on the island, you and Monica. Last year almost at this exact time we were with you enjoying every moment of the visit. This year we are at home and it is probably better than being in the hands of those reckless Norwegians who are unable to add up figures. We also enjoyed tremendously our visit in San Francisco and the dinners at the various elegant cafes we managed to find. Let’s see what news there is of the family: Biddy has come back from Spain (hello! the typing mistakes can be put at my door). She will be here some of the summer and will help me (what???!!) on some of my literary tasks. [------] Mary called from San Francisco two days ago and reported that she had been accepted by Christ Church College at Oxford and has been offered a $10,000 loan without Interest by an eccentric old couple somewhere in the U.S. who are spending their declining years in such restful activity. Micah and I are going up fishing soon to the cabin. Ruth and I just spent a week on the Lake Superior shore, which is our mini ocean, and we had the most wonderful time for one week. I said: this is what Monica and Tomas have all summer. I finally heard by the way from those eccentrics who organized our reading in San Francisco. These street people always find a way to out-flank you somehow. I insisted on 50% of the gross for you and me to divide and I knew that that would amount to something around $1400. They got the money and I waited. I got a check for $920 with the explanation that since none of the other poets taking part in the conference were being paid for the seminars, etc., these poets amounting to 80 or so, they paid by giving free tickets to our conference. There you go, outflanked again...I therefore have $460 dollars here to send you in genuine American greenery and I will send one little piece of it now and then you will never know when the rest is going to come. You are to consider it as a gift from the American economy, fading fast.
