Airmail (39 page)

Love, Robert

31 Oct, 79

Dear Tomas (and Monica)

Well, guess what! I’ve just finished translating all of
Barriers to Truth,
and Mary is just now typing it. I’ll send a copy to you in the next mail, so that you can embarrass me again. I probably translated “dog” as “mouse-seed” and “Paradise” as a lowlevel radiation measuring device.

I had some hurt feelings when you were in the U.S. I guess it was because you hadn’t mentioned at all that you were coming, and I heard about it by accident, and interpreted your silence to mean that you didn’t want to see me, didn’t approve of me, etc. So I was glad to get the broadside you left for me in San Francisco with a cheerful message on it, at least, and a feeling of friendship.

I heard very mixed reports of the doings arranged by the ORTHODOX SWEDES at San Francisco. The Swedish writers apparently insisted on talking all the time about the writer’s unions, and collectives, and collaborations with the Government and such stuff; the Americans in the audience wanted desperately to talk about poetry. Finally one young poet stood up, and said to the Swedes: “All of this makes me want to cry.” I liked that. I heard that you slipped out of the room whenever possible, and people guessed you must have felt a little of the restiveness over this incessant collective obsession too. Americans long for
soul
and the Swedes somehow didn’t understand that.

Please write to me, and tell me what your news is. I have a house in Minneapolis, where I live half the month now (the cabin at Laporte is closed up for the winter). My address in Mpls—I’m going there tomorrow—is 4041 South Vincent, Minneapolis 55410. Please give a big hello to Monica.

As ever,

    Robert

Västerås Dec 2nd -79

Dear Robert,

again a little time for my own benefit (the martyr is speaking), a small amount of time to sit down and talk about
Truth Barrier.
Weather is gray, I don’t feel healthy and Emma has a crisis with her boyfriend, which shakes the whole family. How good to know that somebody over there takes trouble to translate even

“Street Crossing”

which is untranslatable, so I give it to you—make whatever you can. I hesitate to discuss it, I want to trust you. After all, you are a great poet in English. BUT. I object to the last line. I want to have “But for a second I am luminous (or lit, or shining). The street sees me.” In your version here “It” could as well mean “the sun.” Or even “the light.” I don’t know exactly what it means to “be in the light,” it sounds symbolic to me. If you insist on “I am in the light,” I can take it, but you must add “The street sees me.” The line will be a little too long, but never mind.

“The Clearing”

Your secretary made a mistyping in line 2—instead of “be found be those” it should be “be found by those.” The whole tone of your translation sounds like a good Bly prose poem tone to me, I am happy for that. I have a few reservations though. “The name sleeps somewhere” should be plural: “The names sleep” etc....I think a whole family has been living in the house. I want to have “the gypsy tribe” instead of “gypsy race.” “Race” is a difficult word to use, and in this connection I am not thinking of the gypsies as a race, but as a group with a tradition (non-literate tradition). “This house, where the hired man lived.” OK I can understand that for some reason “the croft” is not the right word, but isn’t it too much to explain it by saying “where the hired man lived”? What is wrong with croft? Maybe you should say simply “the simple house” or “little house.” Or “The cottage”? Think it over.
There is a sentence missing.
After “hums with voices” comes a sentence: “Det är världens centrum.” (It is the center of the world.) Did your secretary forget it? (Send my best to her, I hope to see her again soon.)

“First Chapter of a Late Autumn Novel”

I don’t know the quality of the word “reek.” Does it mean very bad smell? In that case I would like to have a more neutral word, like “smell.” I don’t like oil but I don’t think it stinks. Don’t forget to italicize the word “is” in the sentence “if night really
is
something.” A point to discuss is the expression “That world is also this one.” Maybe it’s right. The last sentence: “wonders” is for me a little too positive, I want to have a word more in the monster direction. How is “prodigies”? Good translation probably.

I just got the report from my tax authorities. I got an after taxation of 13,000 Swedish crowns ($3,100), which should all be paid before May 1980. So I propose you look for a very generous publisher for
Truth Barrier
! The moment of truth has arrived. I’ll write soon again. Let me hear something from you!

Love

     Tomas

11 Dec. 79

Dear Tomas,

Your remarks were all very much to the point, excellent. I made use of every one of them. “Street Crossing” ends “But for a second I am lit. The street sees me.”

In “The Clearing,” you’re surely right about “Where the hired man lived.” I do some awkward gymnastics, parallel-bar work, a sort of overweight Comaneci every once in a while, in order to get an American tone in the language. “Croft” is utterly English, and never caught on here. But the long clause with the hired man didn’t work either, so I guess we’ll go back to “little house.” I also changed “name” to “names,” and “race” to “tribe,” which I prefer anyway. I added the missing sentence. I don’t know why you refer to my “secretary”—I type each of these poems with my own little clawed hands. Occasionally I get Mary or Biddy to retype poems for magazines, etc., but their work goes in spurts, interrupted by washing their hair, etc.—high school girls are not reliable help!

Do you think “monsters” is too strong for “vidunders”? I had it once but it got lost in the various drafts. Please talk a little about “That world is also this one.” Am I missing something there? or oversimplifying...

Please forgive me for the mess last August, when I said I was coming and didn’t. I was much distracted. But one letter of yours evidently didn’t arrive. The last letter I had from you said that you hadn’t been able to get ahold of the Swedish Radio people, and that Lasse’s place was closed in August. I didn’t have the money to go there without some help from Radio or a reading, so I abandoned the whole project in that depressed state caused by money shortages. More later!

Love, Robert

9 (?) Jan., 80

Dear Tomas,

Thank you for your new letter about “MINUSGRADER.” You cleared up many points that were floating there in doubt with me—thank you! I think I will call it “Below Freezing.” I knew that “inte alskar oss” means “doesn’t love us,” but I can never tell when that might just be some slang phrase meaning the party was no good! Ah well, stupidity, sweet stupidity!

Would you accept: “A spot of sun that moves over the house walls and slips over the unaware forest of faintly lit faces”? Does “faintly lit” seem all right? “gleaming,” “glimmering,” “flickering” are all very hard to use in English.

GOOD NEWS! Sierra Club has accepted
Truth Barriers
and will publish it in the fall. I asked for and got $1000 for you. I’ll try to get it for you before your tax deadline. Was that May 1st?

It is the first book of poems the Sierra Club has ever printed, and an important step for them. You’ll be read by all sorts of people climbing glaciers, investigating unknown rivers in Argentina, arguing against capitalists at the Supreme Court—They have published some of the most beautiful books in the U.S., and are prospering when many other houses are in trouble.

Question: Is “furnishings” (furniture, lamps, pictures, etc) OK for “detaljerna”? Question: Does the chalk line say
Someone has scribbled chalk on the car doors
or
A piece of chalk has
scribbled on the car doors?

Thank you for your helpful letter. Give me your exact dates
[Editor’s note: The rest of the letter is lost.]

Robert

24 Jan ’78 [1980]

Dear Tomas,

The American Scandinavian Foundation has a contest for translators, closing in a couple of weeks. I’m going to send in
Truth Barriers,
and so I’d love to have the rest of your corrections soon, so I can add those before sending the Mss. off. Why be caught in embarrassing positions?

I’ve sent
Poetry East
the new version of “Below Freezing.”

There is very sad news here. James Wright has cancer of the throat, and may not live very long. I’m going to New York to see him Feb 1st. He’s not responding to radiation treatment and in much pain.

I send my love, as always,

Your faithful friend

Robert

16 Feb, 80

Dear Tomas,

Thank you for your last letter. I gobble the corrections up immediately, like a sort of turkey; and cackle happily afterwards. You must be about half way through now. Sierra Club by the way has assigned the best book designer in the country, a Swiss named Jack Leffenberg, something like that, who will integrate the drawings and type. It’s due out in the fall.

I enclosed for your amusement a mad letter from the Oberlin milieu; Stuart and David Young, to my surprise, didn’t want anyone to come that they weren’t teaching this semester. This man named Wharton asked me to come, and I innocently said yes, if he could find the money. Stuart and David went wild. I don’t understand it all, but I did gather that the Tao Te Ching would suggest I not go!

I’m working so hard on poems. It’s such a blessing to have some time to work. When I am here, with the children, I do no readings, and so have about three hours a day to write. I am veering back toward form, now, with a new view of it, supported partly by my amateur researches on sound, or repeating sounds. So now I am actually taking new prose poems and putting them into lines...exactly reversing what I was doing five years ago, when I took some lined poems, and changed them into prose poems! I am writing at the moment mainly in “twos and threes”...that is, a line with two beats, followed by a line with three. The main problem with us is to avoid all iambic rhythms; if we allow any in, the ghosts of English poetry take over; the reader then falls into a schoolboyish trance, and doesn’t understand a thing being said to him.

I’ll be here in Madison another two weeks. The alternation this year is three weeks and three weeks; three weeks the children stay with me at my bachelor house in Madison, and then three weeks they move out to the farm with Carol. That works amazingly well; and Carol and I are quite friendly in this arrangement. She is doing many lectures, and is doing a book of essays for Harper and Row.

I feel more calm, and more at home in myself and in my poems than I have for many years. And I value my friendship with you, and your poems, very much!

Fondly,

    Robert

8 May, 80

Dear Tomas,

You see there’s no end to foolishness—this lady translates from a language she doesn’t know at all...This is chutzpah even beyond mine!

I hope you enjoyed your Cape Cod stay!

Your
Truth-Barriers
is already in proof...I must hurry now and do my introduction! I think I’ll say you are the
Galsworthy of the North
or some such ringing phrase—how about the
Goethe of the Snow
?

The James Dickey of pacifism...the Nabokov of the
uninhabited
motel—

Sierra Club hopes you’ll be here (in Berkeley) this fall, so they can show what a barrier to truth looks like...all Californians are transparent channels for eternity—

As you can tell, I’m somewhat hysterical and mind-clogged today, having just returned from a 20-day tour. My ego is simultaneously inflated and deformed—it resembles one of those balloons in the Macy Parade—with enormous fingers—held down by ropes...The air will start escaping soon. My children insert pins if I remain floating too long.

Please write!! Love to Monica!!

Love,

    Robert

3 Oct, 80

Dear Tomas,

This is the first review of our book—pre-publication, as they call it! It says there it will be out in November. I think you’ll like the design. You are due to get $1000 then—would you like to have it from the income tax point of view in
this
calendar year, or the
next
(on January 2nd)? Either is fine.

News of the Universe
is selling well, getting excellent reviews, and the Sierra Club is licking its paws. You do have a copy of it?

We have moved into a house in Moose Lake, which has a sauna in the woodshed. What health! I’m playing the piano again, and Ruth and I are practicing a Mozart Violin-Piano piece. What a joy!!!!!!

Love to Monica.

Your musical friend

Robert

Västerås 4-11-80

Dear Robert,

when I
write
this your election has not started, but when you
read
this the show is over, and maybe you are already used to the sad fact that Reagan became President...Or? Another strange thing is that people on a planet in the Andromeda galaxy looking at the earth will see the earth as it was 2 million years ago...

It is a black period of 2 weeks for me. First the election. Then tomorrow the TV program, yes I am on TV tomorrow, for 28 minutes, and I don’t like it. I have seen the film, the producer cut away everything intelligent, so I look as stupid as I probably am, innermost. People will recognize me in the street...When Sonnevi was on TV he got 25 letters from unknown people, some saying things like “I understand that you had a difficult childhood.” And next week: civil defense training again. I have every opportunity to lose face—I will command a bunch of reluctant samaritans, and I have forgotten everything I learned, I don’t even know how to raise the tent that is my headquarters.

After the 2 black weeks I will settle down and try to have some fun. Playing chamber music etc....

I am very much
for
your prose poem about the old ant mansion. It’s an awfully good piece.

In this letter I send—for your amusement—a “debate” about the reasons for my American reputation. The guilty one is you, as always. What has happened to Lundkvist in America?

Love from us all

Tomas

13 Nov, ’80

Dear Tomas,

Yes, Reagan is President! Ruth went to a dance class the next day, and no one wanted to move. They all stood around, couldn’t do the exercises; the bodies were stiff and heavy.

I’ll write a note to
Lyrikvännen
if you will send me the address! I want to mention the PLANS—a Sonnevi book etc. I probably should take a vow—as in Alcoholics Anonymous—never to translate another book of yours! But that is too moral—even for me!

Your book will be out next month and the $1000 is ready—shall I send it now or on Jan 2nd?

We are all well. Noah began piano lessons today, and Micah began horn lessons. I got him a cornet last week. Sam is starting the guitar. We’ll have a band soon. I’ll get out my old saxophone.

Please tell me what the reviewers said about your TV Premiere. You’ll probably get offers of marriage. In general, young boys ask me to be their father over here. How can one make
less
impact?

Fondly,

    Robert

Västerås 25 nov -80

Dear Robert,

yes please send the Truth Barriers’ dollars as fast as possible
—the bills are piling up. I need a pair of winter shoes too!

I have been invited to Adelaide for March 1982! The same meeting as the one you visited last year. Tell me everything about Australia!

I will not recommend you to write anything for
Lyrikvännen,
I mean, in this debate about the size of Tranströmer and his contemporaries. Very embarrassing. The address is Lyrikvännen, Box 130, 10121 Stockholm. But don’t use it.

Everything is fine. I have almost digested the election. I have survived the latest civil defense training (3 days only) in a healthy sleet. I have survived my TV show too. People liked it, shop assistants and plumbers, even professors. People here have been very generous in an un-Swedish way.

Hope everything is fine with you and your new and old families.

Best

    Tomas