[lit-ideas] Re: Re -- Three poems by Thomas Tranströmer
- From: Torgeir Fjeld <t.fjeld1@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2017 15:24:16 +0200
Is it "led", or should it be "lead"?
D
Lawrence's hunch was right: indeed it should be lead
lead2 [led]
noun
1. Chemistry. a heavy, comparatively soft, malleable, bluish-gray metal,
sometimes found in its natural state but usually combined as a sulfide,
especially in galena. Symbol: Pb; atomic weight: 207.19; atomic number: 82;
specific gravity: 11.34 at 20°C.
2. something made of this metal or of one of its alloys.
3. a plummet or mass of lead suspended by a line, as for taking soundings.
-- cf. the original "bly" --
"Snöfall i det blystilla havet."
Translated as
" Snow falls on an ocean of [lead]."
Eh -- silent as lead, possibly an allusion to the expression "heavy as
lead", which means -- metaphorically -- a topic or emotion that's on the
brink of the bearable.
Cheers,
-t
Mvh. / Yours sincerely,
Torgeir Fjeld, PhD
http://torgeirfjeld.com/
On 25 October 2017 at 18:19, Torgeir Fjeld <t.fjeld1@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
It's a good comment --
Tranströmer finds it odd that the member of the audience was more curious
of how "his work had affected his poetry" than the extent to which his
poetry had "affected [his] work". We are reminded of the easy going
journalist who arrives at some artist's -- any artist's -- to make an
interview. What will be the point of the journo's story? Surely what his
readers are interested in is how to distinguish this particular artist from
others, or, in other words, what is SPECIFIC to this artist? So, to make a
long story short, why not make the artist himself tell the journalist what
this distinguishing trait is?
Then, upon meeting a reflective person as Tranströmer the journalist is
confronted with the folly of his project. Surely from the artist's
perspective it isn't interesting how his work can serve as a distinguishing
mark to other artists, but simply how it is that the work is artistic AS
SUCH. What Tranströmer wanted to know was what it was about his art that
made it art. What the audience member asked what how we are to distinguish
Tranströmer the product from other artistic products on offer.
No wonder the world is full of confusion and misunderstanding.
Another thing your bring up is the question of the arrival of 'death' in
the middle of life. You read this quite literally as someone's death has
arrived. The first reading that came to THIS reader's mind was however more
in line with the notion of death we find in allegories such as in Bergman's
Seventh Seal: death is a figure we try but never succeed in outwitting. He
is there as a presence throughout our lives, always preparing for our
arrival to his domain, which surely will happen sooner or later. The event
in the second stanza of Black Postcards would be allegorical if the figure
of death is considered as a premonition, an early sign, a figurehead. We
can sense it as a chill down the spine, a rush of adrenaline when a child
suddenly runs across the street we are driving on, when the person next to
us is hit by a brick in the head: it wasn't our turn... yet.
Mvh. / Yours sincerely,
Torgeir Fjeld, PhD
http://torgeirfjeld.com/
On 24 October 2017 at 17:48, Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Torgeir,
Thank you for these. I downloaded the volume edited by Robert Bly, *The
Half-Finished Heaven: Selected Poems.” * Here are a few comments from
Bly’s introduction in case any others are as ignorant of Transtromer as I
am:
Transtromer made his living as a psychologist. “For some years he worked
at a boys’ prison I Linkoping.” The haiku poem “Prison,” a poem he wrote
after his stroke, perhaps long after, suggests that his experiences as a
prison psychologist were relived time and time again. “Once during a
reading in New York, a member of the audience asked him if his work had
affected his poetry. He did reply, but mentioned how odd it seemed that so
few people asked him: ‘How has your poetry affected your work?’ Did my
poetry affect my work? I was “the writer” for a lot of engineering
activities and taught a couple of writing classes for engineers and
contract administrators at one time, but can’t really bring to mind
anything that might indicate that my poetry influenced my work.
Transtromer obviously thought that his poetry did influence his work, but I
wonder how.
Further down, Bly writes, “If you are addicted to certainty, there’s no
point in going toward his poems – they’ll just lead you into islands that
disappear a moment later.
“In general, the Swedish writing community likes everyone to walk in
step. Bjorn Hakansson, a well-known Swedish critic and poet, attacked
Transtromer for having too much solitude. His poetry, ‘passive and
contemplative,’ achieves peace, Hakansson said, but ‘does so at the expense
of any impulse to intervene and change the world.’”
My impression has been that the American writing community is the same.
I’m sure that Robert Lowell was lionized in part because he did attempt to
intervene and change the world. Many of his attempts were morphed by his
psychosis into imagining that he was a great political or literary figure
from the past. His activities during his manic periods embarrassed his
friends and later on after he was out of his manic phase and back on his
medications they embarrassed him, but he like so many American poets did
write “to intervene and change the world.”
I do like the Prison poem.
In the second Haiku I want to read that the freezing wind is passing the
names of demons through the house at night but the semicolon won’t let me.
I read a lot of Haiku in the past and recall poems like this one, with
the last line making a statement that draws from the first part as this
poem does; so I’m sure a dash at least is needed, but I don’t understand
who these demons are that are named – unless this is a personal poem: the
freezing wind his wife’s treatment of him after an argument, the “name of
demons” the chaotic thoughts that keep him from sleep.
In the “Black Postcards” poem I assume that the first word in the last
line should be “lead” and that makes a fine image. The sea in a certain
light might look like lead. I like this poem: the “folk song without a
homeland – uncertain future – shadows wrestling on the dock”: Very nice”
I’m not sure about “Sometimes death arrives in the middle of life // to
measure man.” Obviously it is the death of someone important to a man, but
if so, how can such a death be soon forgotten? I don’t understand when I
think of Susan who died July 4th 1915. But if I think of my grandmother
who died when I was 12 and many other relatives and friends who died, I can
say “life goes on.” But if “our suit” is sewn from such forgotten
experiences does that account for the silent sewing? Or perhaps it just
means that the suit that is our life is being sewn and will go on being
sewn regardless of the people dying about us.
I only seem to be able to write about feelings I personally have. I
don’t recall being able to write well in the second person. Transtromer in
the poems you translate and in the poems I’ve thus far read translated by
Bly seems comfortable in the third person. That seems to work best from
the Haiku perspective, that is, a third-person description of some sort and
then an ending that shows how this is personal and what the effect is – in
this Transtromer succeeds.
Thanks again,
Lawrence
*From:* lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@freel
ists.org] *On Behalf Of *Torgeir Fjeld
*Sent:* Tuesday, October 24, 2017 5:23 AM
*To:* lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
*Subject:* [lit-ideas] Three poems by Thomas Tranströmer
Die Seele ist nur der
Schlaf des Geistes.
GWF Hegel, Die Philosophie des Geistes
Three poems by Thomas Tranströmer
"Tomas Tranströmer (1931 – 2015 ), a Swedish poet, has been universally
acclaimed as one of the most important European and Scandinavian writers
since 1945. He was awarded the 2011 Nobel Prize in Literature. Tranströmer
suffered a stroke in 1990, and after a six-year silence published his
collection Sorgegondolen, translated into English as The Grief Gondola
[2010]." (from thomastranstromer.net/about/)
FÄNGELSE
Pojken dricker mjölk
och somnar trygg i sin cell,
en moder av sten.
PRISON
The boy's drinking milk,
sleeping safely in his cell,
mother made of stone
* * *
En pinande blåst
drar genom huset i natt -
demonernas namn.
A freezing wind is
passing through our house to-night;
the name of demons
* * *
SVARTA VYKORT
I
Almanackan fullskriven, framtid okänd.
Kabeln nynnar folkvisan utan hemland.
Snöfall i det blystilla havet. Skuggor
brottas på kajen.
II
Mitt i livet händer det att döden kommer
och tar mått på människan. Det besöket
glöms och livet fortsätter. Men kostymen
sys i det tysta.
BLACK POSTCARDS
1.
A calendar fully booked. A future uncertain.
The wire is humming quietly on a folk song
without homeland. Snow falls on an ocean of
led. Shadows wrestle on the dock.
2.
Sometimes death arrives in the middle of life
to measure man. It is a visit that is soon
forgotten; life goes on. Our
suit is sewn in silence.
Mvh. / Yours sincerely,
Torgeir Fjeld, PhD
http://torgeirfjeld.com/
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