by Robert Bly
My impulse as editor has consistently been to facilitate the story these letters tell, to fill in gaps where parts of the correspondence are obviously missing, and, frankly, to make Airmail the best read possible given the available surviving materials. Even the more trivial bits preserved here help us grasp the spirit of liveliness and fun that kept Bly and Tranströmer, collegial considerations aside, writing back and forth to each other for more than a quarter century.
Of course I had allies in these enhancements of the text. Torbjörn Schmidt did meticulous pioneering work on the original edition, from which I have gratefully drawn. Where the letters frequently venture out beyond the scope of Schmidt’s work, I’ve benefited from the informed consultation of Roland Thorstensson, professor emeritus of Scandinavian studies and Swedish at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota. (In December 2010, Professor Thorstensson shared a stage with Robert Bly at Plymouth Congregational Church in Minneapolis, where he read the Swedish originals of Bly’s Tranströmer translations.) I indicate where I’ve adopted his wording with the initials “RT.” Bly scholar Mark Gustafson has also given me good help on recondite Bly matters, as has Robert Bly himself. Monica and Tomas Tranströmer have very graciously replied to my queries at a busy time for them indeed. I should note that unless otherwise attributed, all translations of Tranströmer’s (and other Scandinavian poets’) titles are Bly’s. In several cases, Bly has translated a book title for reference though not the book itself. Most of the Tranströmer poems mentioned by Bly can be found in The Half-Finished Heaven, in consultation with which this book is best read. Most of Bly’s own poems alluded to in the text are readily available in his own volumes, though I have included a few around which more than the usual amount of discussion revolves in these letters.
—Thomas R. Smith
RB April 6, 1964
Halvfärdiga himlen—Tranströmer’s 1962 poetry collection, translated by RB into English as The Half-Finished Heaven.
RB May 15, 1964
Allen anthology—The New American Poetry: 1945–1960, edited by Donald M. Allen, 1960.
TT September 3, 1964
“Snowfall”—“Snowfall in the Afternoon,” Silence in the Snowy Fields.
RB October 23, 1964
Nå, her er vi alle i Paris!—The first two sentences are in Norwegian. RB translates: “Here we all are in Paris! Who could imagine such a strange thing!”
Another man I admire greatly—Georg Groddeck (1866–1934), German physician from whose The Book of the It Freud derived the concept of the Id.
That newspaper out in the weather—“Om Historien” translated by RB as “About History.”
RB March 18, 1965
I enjoyed Hemligheter på vägen—TT’s 1958 collection, title translated by RB as Secrets on the Road.
“Efter Anfall”—Translated by RB as “After the Attack.”
this mole is an old friend—Reference to mole in TT’s “Resans formler” (translated by Robin Fulton as “The Journey’s Formulae”). RB also references his own “Laziness and Silence” and “The Mole” by John Haines.
RB March 31, 1965
Ord och Bild—Swedish cultural and literary journal founded in 1892.
RB July 8, 1965
old Heimat! old Bleie—“old home” in Bleie, ancestral home of Blys.
I just wrote Jim Wright—Letter to James Wright, July 8, 1965: “We stopped at a farmhouse—[Tranströmer] asked for some sort of key—we went to this huge red barn and he opened the door with the gigantic old key—it was a Moose Museum! Yes, it had a complete moose skeleton, hundreds of moose teeth for sale, everything in the whole building was moose. It was probably the only building in Sweden completely pervaded by moose and moosiness.”
that calm and grotesque St. George—This sculpture by Bernt Notke became the subject of RB’s poem “St. George, the Dragon, and the Virgin,” Meditations on the Insatiable Soul, 1994.
RB December 1, 1965
Leif Sjöberg—Sjöberg’s article in the American Swedish Monthly, 1965:5, was titled “Poetry: A Pretty Hopeless Product to Market.”
RB February 7, 1966
urgammel Bleie gard—According to RB, “longstanding Bly farm.” låsa—“lock.”
TT March 1, 1966
Viet-Nam poem about the ghost train—“Asian Peace Offers Rejected without Publication,” in The Light Around the Body.
RB March 18, 1966
Sweden Writes—Anthology of contemporary Swedish writers, 1965, edited by Lars Bäckström and Göran Palm.
RB April 10, 1966
Herr Across-the-River—RB seems to be playing here on an incorrect translation of the name “Tranströmer.” According to RT, “ström” does indeed mean “stream,” but “tran” in Swedish is not related to our English root meaning “across.” Instead it means “fish oil.” “Tranströmer,” says RT, is “one of the many last names in Swedish where two seemingly different objects are combined.”
TT April 10, 1966
BLM—Bonniers litterära magasin, influential Swedish literary journal.
TT June 4, 1966
Klanger och spår—Translated by RB as Resonance and Tracks, 1966.
TT July 20, 1966
poem about the Oyster—“Opening an Oyster,” in The Light Around the Body.
RB August 8, 1966
“I det fria”—Translated by RB as “Out in the Open.”
“As the Asian War Begins”—Later version published in The Light Around the Body.
TT September 1966
Bonniers—TT’s longtime publisher.
MRA—Moral Re-Armament, a conservative Christian revivalist movement founded by Protestant evangelist Frank Buchman in 1938.
“Lamento”—Translated by RB as “Lamento.”
TT October 1, 1966
Ducks—Tiny chapbook of a three-line poem by RB, hence the playful reference to Gone with the Wind.
RB October 8, 1966
Dagens Nyheter—(Daily News) Largest morning newspaper in Sweden, founded in 1864.
Hjorth—Daniel Hjorth, chief editor at BLM.
Calvinols resa genom världen—Novel by Swedish author P. C. Jersild.
TT October 29, 1966
Aftonbladet—A leading Swedish daily tabloid, founded in 1830.
RB November 20, 1966
Thursday about 10 of America’s—See Donald Hall’s marvelous account of this event in his interview with Peter Stitt, Paris Review, Fall 1991.
TT April 5, 1967
Carroll—Donald Carroll, publisher of Rapp & Carroll.
RB June 10, 1967
wall-stumbling-along-in-the-street poem—“Preludier” by TT, translated by RB as “Preludes.”
TT July 11, 1967
I’m enclosing a poem—“Med älven,” translated by RB as “Going with the Current.”
TT August 8, 1967
My own poem—“Andrum juli,” translated by RB as “Breathing Space July.”
Myrdal’s articles—Jan Myrdal, critical commentary on U.S. involvement in Vietnam.
TT September 30, 1967
The Lion’s Tail and Eyes—Reference to RB’s collection of that title (with James Wright and William Duffy), Sixties Press, 1962, in which Bly posits a poetry of evocative imagery rather than literalistic “pictures.”
RB October 2, 1967
Strountes—Title of Gunnar Ekelöf’s 1955 collection, translated by RB as Nonsense.
TT October 7, 1967
you’re getting two letters at once—The other may be TT’s letter of September 30.
your dispute in The Sixties—RB, “The Collapse of James Dickey,” The Sixties 9, Spring 1967.
TT December 18, 1967
Stanza 2—RB’s poem “Melancholy” in The Light Around the Body.
RB December 27, 1967
Also a copy of my play—The Satisfaction of Vietnam: A Play in Eight Scenes, unpublished.<
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“Direktörens död,” etc.—RB’s poems “The Executive’s Death,” “Those Being Eaten by America,” and “Smothered by the World,” from The Light Around the Body.
TT February 19, 1968
Sinyavsky trial—Andrei Sinyavsky, Russian dissident.
RB April 23, 1968
Ord om Vietnam—Anthology edited by Benny Andersen, 1967.
TT June 9, 1968
the enclosed poem—“Trafik,” translated by RB as “Traffic.”
golden wings—Reference to RB poem “Laziness and Silence” in Silence in the Snowy Fields.
TT July 12, 1968
Mamma in the hospital—TT’s mother, Helmy Tranströmer, was being treated for cancer.
Mr. Hall—Donald Hall.
TT August 8, 1968
Unicorn—American literary journal featuring RB’s translations of Martinson.
Miami Beach—Site of the Republican convention at which Nixon was nominated.
RB October 21, 1968
George—George Hitchcock, editor of Kayak.
TT December 10, 1968
Harry Smith—Editor of the literary magazine The Smith (not the Beat Harry Smith), writing in The Sixties 10, 1968: “I don’t even doubt that lovely poems are written in China, but I am unaware of any Chinaman who has done as well as John Donne.”
RB December 30, 1968
the two lovely poems—“The Open Window” and “Outskirts” (RB translation).
RB January 15, 1969
cement piping poem—“Outskirts.”
TT January 18, 1969
Misan—Emma Tranströmer.
TT June 14, 1969
“sitting on some rocks”—“Sitting on Some Rocks in Shaw Cove, California,” in RB, The Morning Glory, 1969.
RB June 24, 1969
first drafts of two translations—“Outskirts” and “The Open Window.”
TT July 30, 1969
Issa—Issa: Ten Poems, self-published pamphlet of RB translations of Japanese haiku poet Issa, given away at poetry readings: “This booklet is a gift, and is not to be sold.”
Bly magazine from Tennessee—Special RB issue of the Tennessee Poetry Journal, 1969.
Comrade Zhdanov—Andrei Zhdanov, chairman of the Soviet of the Union, infamous for his purges of musicians and stance toward “incorrect art” as ideological diversion.
TT November 17, 1969
very strong poem of yours—“The Teeth-Mother Naked at Last.”
politrucs—“Politically appointed civil servant” with connotations of “bureaucrat” (RT).
exiled Hungarian poet—Géza Thinsz.
RB December 10, 1969
The Shadow Brother—Early title of Sleepers Joining Hands, 1973.
Doing Nothing for a Thousand Years—Published in 1979 as This Tree Will Be Here for a Thousand Years.
TT January 4, 1970
a new poem—“Upprätt,” translated by RB as “Standing Up.”
RB January 16, 1970
the Barn in Devon—“Walking on the Sussex Coast.”
the rocket-shaver poem—“The Open Window.” See RB’s letter to Torbjörn Schmidt, p. 418.
RB January 20, 1970
your Hen Poem—“Standing Up.”
TT January 30, 1970
The reconstruction of this long letter is something of an educated guess. The Swedish draft, as translated by Judith Moffett and Lars-Håkan Svensson, is incomplete, ending with the sentence “Or I can stand anything except not to...” Weighing date and context, I’ve taken the risk of combining this with the partial letter in Ironwood (see end note for RB November 12, 1978), originally written mostly in English, dealing with poems from Night Vision, and which begins “And there is a boat trying to put in.” (JM and L-HS have also translated the part of the first paragraph of the last section beginning “The boathook is something totally foreign.”)
RB February 9, 1970
Would you check this translation—TT’s “Balakirevs dröm (1905),” translated by RB as “Balakirev’s Dream (1905).”
TT February 27, 1970
Crunk—RB’s pseudonym for critical essays in The Fifties and The Sixties.
TT April 19, 1970
“walking in spring ditches”—Published as “Walking in the Ditch Grass” in Jumping Out of Bed, Barre Publishers, 1973.
2 poems “Telpas”—“Open and Closed Space” and “About History.” “våra istidsateljéers röda djur”—translated by RB as “red beasts of the ice-age studios.”
new “book”—Mörkerseende, translated by RB as Night Vision.
“Författarförlaget”—A left-leaning writers’ cooperative formed in 1969.
RB April 26, 1970
“Till vänner bakom en gräns”—Translated by RB as “To Friends behind a Border.” ordene sum “visar tänderna”—words baring their teeth.
Enclosed with the letter was a clipping of newspaper article on RB and Sen. McCarthy.
TT May 2, 1970
Voznesensky—Andrei Voznesensky, Russian poet.
TT August 11, 1970
a very LONG poem—“Östersjöar,” 1974; “Baltics,” not translated by RB, but English versions by Samuel Charters and Robin Fulton.
poem about roads—“Längre In,” translated by RB as “Further In.”
TT September 7, 1970
Canadian Thistle—Published as “Looking at a Dry Canadian Thistle Brought in from the Snow” in the first edition of The Morning Glory, 1969, revised to “Looking at a Dry Tumbleweed Brought in from the Snow” in later editions.
RB September 14, 1970
“Renaissance Painting”—Published as “Leonardo’s Secret” in The Morning Glory, 1969.
“The Hunter”—Published in The Morning Glory, 1969.
“Helicopter”—“Going in a Helicopter from Riverside to the L.A. Airport,” published in The Morning Glory, 1969.
RB November 12, 1970 (first letter)
“The Bookcase”—TT’s “Bokskåpet.”
“Skiss i oktober”—TT, “Sketch in October.”
Jag är jordens—“I am of the earth” (RT).
RB November 12, 1970 (second letter)
References are to “Namnet,” translated by RB as “The Name.”
TT November 18, 1970
The letter from the professor—Stephen Mooney, editor of the Tennessee Poetry Journal. Mooney had apparently reported being harassed by the Ku Klux Klan.
RB November 24, 1970
The letter included drafts of “At the Riverside,” later “Going with the Current” (“Med älven”) and “Breathing Space July.”
TT November 29, 1970
the Buckleys—William F. Buckley, conservative writer and pundit.
holy barbarian—Possibly a reference to Lawrence Lipton’s book on the Beats, The Holy Barbarians, 1959.
RB December 14, 1970
I know the power—RB’s solution is “identity books” in “The Bookcase.”
TT December 20, 1970
stakhanovite—A category of Soviet industrial worker rewarded with special privileges for productivity beyond the ordinary.
RB December 28, 1970
The concrete has a cement-headed foreman—Playful reference to TT poem “Summer Grass” (RB translation): “Grass and flowers—we are landing. / The grass has a green foreman. / I go and check in.”
RB January 21, 1971
cleaning oil off birds—On January 19, two tankers collided off Golden Gate, spilling 840,000 gallons of oil into San Francisco Bay. An estimated 10,000 birds and millions of sea creatures were killed.
TT April 2, 1971
A book is planned—Poesi från USA, 1972, included TT’s translations of RB, James Wright, and W. S. Merwin.