by Robert Bly
TT May 21, 1971
Din gamle vän—Your old friend.
RB May 30, 1971
She gave birth—Micah Bly.
TT June 4, 1971
George Young—editor of the journal Granite.
RB July 22, 1971
my brother—James Bly, born 1925.
National Guard Camp poem—“Posteringen” translated by RB as “Guard Duty.”
RB July 27, 1971
“Spiritual Death” and “Sleeping Woman”—Unpublished. Described in 1999 RB note to Torbjörn Schmidt as “Two rejected poems.”
your Snowmelt poem—“Från snösmältningen—’66” translated by RB as “Snow- Melting Time, ’66.”
TT August 4, 1971
a woman I had been very close to—Gun Bergman, born 1916, translator of Slavic languages.
RB September 1, 1971
The Vladimir Mayakovsky quote is translated by Judith Moffett and Lars-Håkan Svensson.
TT September 13, 1971
“Sverige-Amerika-stiftelsen”—Sweden-America Foundation.
What is absurd—Refers to prose that became introduction to RB’s translations of Göran Sonnevi, The Economy Spinning Faster and Faster, SUN, 1982. RB sticks to his story that Sonnevi’s poem on the Vietnam war caused Swedish prime minister Olof Palme to change his position on the war.
TT September 25, 1971
Thank you for the 20 poems—Twenty Poems, The Seventies Press, 1970, featured a cover drawing by Franz Richter. In his notes, RB writes that TT is one of “three powerful poets in Sweden so far in this century.”
RB November 23, 1971
4-4-4 generalizations—4-4-4 refers to a balanced physical/personality type in psychologist William Sheldon’s body typology.
The letter included a clipping from the Daily Iowan, “Famed poet Bly condemns Writers’ Workshop makeup.”
TT November 26, 1971
Martinson—Dikter om ljus och mörker, title translated by RB as Poems on Light and Dark.
RB December 12, 1971
“Hair”—Published in RB’s Sleepers Joining Hands, 1973.
This is Senator Kennedy’s plane—Senator Ted Kennedy, while campaigning in 1964, survived a harrowing small-plane crash.
RB January 1, 1972
I took a long walk—This experience is recorded in RB’s prose poem “Opening the Door of a Barn I Thought Was Empty on New Year’s Eve” in The Morning Glory, 1975 edition.
the troll poem—Translated by RB as “The Hill in the Woods.”
TT January 18, 1972
“företagsdemokrati”—A democratic workplace organizational principle that gave workers a greater part in decision making. “The aim was to do away with a top-down, hierarchical system” (RT).
RB January 29, 1972
Alan Ross—Publisher of London Magazine Editions.
TT February 8, 1972
Håkan Berggren—Swedish ambassador to the United States; at that time head of the Swedish Information Service in New York.
the dentist Scherer—James Scherer, friend of RB.
RB March 12, 1972
Worm Digging Poem—RB’s “Digging Worms,” published in This Tree Will Be Here a Thousand Years, 1979.
TT April 5, 1972
your wonderful Hawaiian crab—RB’s prose poem “On the Rocks at Maui,” in The Morning Glory, 1975.
RB April 8, 1972
a Hindi poem—This undated clipping has TT’s typed note: “Please, ask KABIR, next time you meet him. What poem of mine is this, translated into HINDI?”
TT May 1, 1972
the CDU—Christian Democratic Union, conservative party in Germany.
I was making some arm movements—Playful reference to RB’s habit of gesturing while reading poems.
take this shorter poem—“Markgenomskådande,” translated by RB as “Seeing Through the Ground.”
“jump-issue”—The Seventies 1, Spring 1972, featured material that became the Beacon Press volume Leaping Poetry, 1975. It contains TT’s “Out in the Open.”
RB May 24, 1972
“Pa Mauis Klippor”—“On the Rocks at Maui.”
TT July 8, 1972
My Pittsburgh coronation ceremony—TT received a prize from the International Poetry Forum.
the Swenson book is out—Windows and Stones: Selected Poems, translated by May Swenson with Leif Sjöberg, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1972.
RB August 4, 1972
up here in Steinshylla’s hytte—up here in the tourist hut (RB).
TT August 9, 1972
my next “book”—Stigar, 1973 (Pathways, RB translation), also included translations of RB and János Pilinszky.
RB September 1, 1972
Kjell Heggelund—Influential Norwegian publisher, poet, editor.
TT November 21, 1972
Keith Harrison—Australian poet and teacher living in Minnesota.
Franklin—Franklin Brainard, Minnesota poet ill with leukemia.
RB November 26, 1972
Keith Gunderson—Minnesota poet and philosopher, author of 3124 Lyndale Ave. So. Apt 24, published by the Minnesota Writers’ Publishing House.
TT January 9, 1973
the terror bombings—Nixon’s infamous “Christmas” bombings of North Vietnam.
a small despair poem—TT’s “December Evening, ’72” (“Decemberkväll -72”).
RB January 10, 1973
the next Beacon book—Published as Friends, You Drank Some Darkness, 1975.
TT January 28, 1973
Mr Booth—Martin Booth, British publisher.
the October poem—“Sketch in October.”
RB March 17, 1973
“Namnlöst”—Translated by RB as “No Name for It.”
Färjesång—RB renders as Ferryman’s Song.
“Etyder”—Studies.
RB March 24, 1973
hear the stones roll—Reference to TT’s poem “Allegro.”
TT March 29, 1973
November birch—Reference to RB’s “Solitude Late at Night in the Woods.”
RB July 4, 1973
fruit-poem—“Sena maj,” translated by RB as “Late May.”
TT August 18, 1973
Your poems in Stigar: “Late Night in the Woods,” “Six Winter Privacy Poems,” “Walking in the Ditch Grass,” “Digging Worms,” “On the Rocks at Maui.”
RB January 30, 1974
the kamikaze poem—“Längs radien,” translated by RB as “Along the Lines.”
TT February 13, 1974
Mr Galin—Saul Galin, literature professor at Brooklyn College, New York. the rushingwaterpoem—“Snow-Melting Time, ’66.”
RB March 12, 1974
Ruth says—Ruth Counsel, who became RB’s second wife in 1980.
RB March 15, 1974
according to Daniela—The letter includes a brochure from Daniela Gioseffi.
RB March 30, 1974
APR—American Poetry Review, Jan./Feb. 1974, with RB’s essay “The Network and the Community.”
TT April 30, 1974
the book of seal poems—Point Reyes Poems, Mudra, Half Moon Bay, California.
2 Danish pamphlets—RB’s poems in translation from Husets Forlag.
I have recommended the book—Earthwalk by Philip Slater, discussed in “The Network and the Community.”
RB July 16, 1974
a thesis on my poems—Published as Moving Inward: A Study of Robert Bly’s Poetry, 1977.
TT August 22, 1974
footnote: Jag gillar Jung, tvivla inte på det.—“I like Jung, be sure about that” (RT).
Another of your fads—See Leaping Poetry, “The Three Brains,” on the ideas of American neurologist Paul MacLean.
RB September 3, 1974
the Danton poem—“Citoyens.”
RB October 16, 1974
NFO farmers—The Nat
ional Farmers Organization staged dramatic protests against the low prices of farm goods.
RB November 24, 1974
“The Poet’s Friend”—Reference to the name of the Swedish journal Lyrikvännen.
TT February 4, 1975
Hemåt—Translated by RB as “Calling Home.”
And the other one—“Gläntan,” missing from this letter, was translated by RB as “The Clearing.”
RB February 18, 1975
This is not the roof—Reference to TT’s “Along the Lines.”
RB March 12, 1975
Svensson—Georg Svensson of Bonniers publishers.
“skalbagge”—Beetle in the last paragraph of “The Clearing.”
TT July 1, 1975
Old Man Rubbing—The final poem in Old Man Rubbing His Eyes, Unicorn Press, is “Passing an Orchard by Train.”
RB Septemer 6, 1975
the Snowbank poem—“Snowbanks North of the House” in The Man in the Black Coat Turns, 1981.
RB September 8, 1975
“Båten, Byn”—“Båten—Byn,” translated by RB as “Boat, Town.”
TT September 19, 1975
“Skapande svenska”—Creative Swedish (or creative writing in Swedish) (RT).
TT October 8, 1975
Mr Hawley (Oyez boss)—Robert Hawley, cofounder of Oyez Press.
Here is a confessional poem—“Från vintern 1947,” translated by RB as “From the Winter of 1947.”
TT January 22, 1976
Skenet från den andra stranden—“The light from the other shore” (RT).
“Hämtar ved”—“Fetching Firewood” (RT).
Can I use your idea—RB had mistakenly translated TT’s “trees” (“träd”) as “threads.”
TT June 7, 1976
“The left hand”—“The Left Hand” in RB’s This Body Is Made of Camphor and Gopherwood, Harper and Row, 1977.
Ett Tärningskast—Throw of the dice.
“Övergångsstället”—Translated by RB as “Street Crossing.”
“Hastig promenad”—RB’s “Walking Swiftly” in This Body Is Made of Camphor and Gopherwood.
RB July 17, 1976
the idea of “skum”—RB translates as “gloomy” in the attached draft titled “Place to Cross.”
Cry of the Loon—Near Laporte, Minnesota, where RB bought a house the next year.
TT September 19, 1976
I send you a prose piece—“Till Mats och Laila,” translated by RB as “For Mats and Laila.”
RB September 24, 1976
Brutal men invading—Published in verse form as “Visiting the Farallones” in The Man in the Black Coat Turns, 1981.
TT November 8, 1976
Wonderful poem—“Frost on Window Panes” in RB’s The Morning Glory.
TT November 11, 1976
Here is a small poem of mine—“Schubertiana.”
Not to be confused with the earlier poem, “C Major,” which appears for the first time in RB’s translation in Appendix 2 of this book.
RB January 24, 1977
“Finding the Father”—In This Body Is Made of Camphor and Gopherwood.
TT January 26, 1977
have a look at this—See “The Gift the Prose Poem Gives” in RB January 31, 1977.
RB January 31, 1977
a few notes on “Tomales Bay”—“Sunday Morning in Tomales Bay” from Point Reyes Poems.
TT March 4, 1977
The letter is written on some typed information about the Nobel Prize, on which Saul Bellow’s name is crossed out and RB’s written in, with the year 1976 changed to 1996.
what’s-his-name?—Michael Cuddihy.
RB March 20, 1977
seals and billfolds—See “The Dead Seal” in The Morning Glory.
TT May 19, 1977
The headache piece—“The House of Headache,” translated by John Matthias and Lars-Håkan Svensson in the New Yorker, October 17, 2011.
In the other piece—“Minusgrader,” translated by RB as “Below Freezing.”
Glaser—Werner Wolf Glaser.
Maybe the hockey poem—“The Hockey Poem” in The Morning Glory .
RB July 7, 1977
my longest prose poem—“Finding an Old Ant Mansion” in The Man in the Black Coat Turns.
“Lars Gustafsson Collection”—Gustafsson lectured at the University of Texas, Austin in the 1970s and subsequently lived there 1983–2003.
TT January 20, 1978
the long poem I include in this letter—“Galleriet,” translated by RB as “The Gallery.”
the beautiful Snail-book—RB’s This Body Is Made of Camphor and Gopherwood is embellished by pencil drawings of snail shells by Gendron Jensen.
our Bly-volume in Swedish—Prosadikter, 1977.
TT February 19, 1978
a Wright-issue—Ironwood 10, 1977, featured Carol Bly’s photo of James Wright on the horse David, mentioned in Wright’s poetry.
TT May 11, 1978
penates—In both Spanish and Latin, household gods.
RB May 23, 1978
Gov Wallace’s photograph—George Wallace, governor of Alabama and segregationist.
TT September 6, 1978
Michael Cuddihy wants to have some letters—Published in special TT issue, Ironwood 13, 1979.
RB November 12, 1978
Ironwood—The Ironwood issue included TT’s letters of: January 30, 1970 (partial, seems to belong to letter of that date translated here by JM and L-HS, though written mostly in English), February 27, 1970, February 8, 1972, January 18, 1977, May 19, 1977, May 11, 1978. The originals of all these letters are missing, so the versions here may incorporate transcription errors.
RB February 5, 1979
in the title of your book—In 1980, RB published a full translation of TT’s Sanningsbarriären as Truth Barriers, Sierra Club.
I am finishing an anthology—News of the Universe, 1980.
“Havsvinden”—Translated by RB as “The Sea Wind.”
TT April 14, 1979
“Fredagsbarnen” (or is it “Mandagsbarnen”?)—“Friday’s Children” or “Monday’s Children”; TT is playing on an old proverb here.
Annie did not say—Ann Charters.
RB April 29, 1979
I met a young man at M.I.U.—Joseph Stubblefield.
RB December 2, 1979
This letter originally appeared in Poetry East 4/5, 1981, and was reprinted in Of Solitude and Silence: Writings on Robert Bly, edited by Richard Jones and Kate Daniels, Beacon Press. Since the original, written in English, is lost, transcription errors may be built-in, as with the Ironwood letters.
RB February 16, 1980
the Oberlin milieu—Stuart Friebert and David Young, editors of Field at Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio.
Wharton—Bob Wharton.
RB October 3, 1980
The review from Publishers Weekly, September 26, 1980, was enclosed with the letter.
TT November 4, 1980
the TV program—“Tomas Tranströmer—ett möte sommaren 1980.”
In this letter I send—On a photocopy of the article, TT has written: “Means that you don’t have to worry about the Nobel Prize and I don’t have to worry about membership in the Swedish Academy.”
RB September 1, 1981 (first letter)
your Petrarch Prize—German annual literary award.
Enclosed is the April 26, 1981, review of Truth Barriers from the New York Times. RB has captioned photo of TT: “I once read a Kafka book and have never been the same since.”
