Poetry Lectures

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ED HERMAN:
Welcome to Poetry Lectures featuring talks by poets, scholars and educators presented by Poetry Foundation.org. The Star by My Head is a bilingual anthology of eight Swedish poets, including Nobel Prize winner Tomas Transtromer. In this program, we'll listen to a conversation between the book's two co-editors and translators, Malena Morling and Jonas Ellerstrom. Malena Morling grew up in southern Sweden. She studied at Hampshire College, New York University and the University of Iola. Morling is the author of two books of poetry and is on the faculty of New England College and the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Jonas Ellerstrom is a writer, translator, critic and publisher. He studied literature at (UNKNOWN) University. He was involved with Malmo Poetry Days, has served as moderator at Literary events and was editor for the Swedish Translators Lexicon. Ellerstrom lives in Stockholm. Malena Morling and Jonas Ellerstrom discussed the history and current state of poetry in Sweden, the challenges of translation and how sound carries meaning in poetry.

And they read some poems in both Swedish and English from The Star by My Head. This conversation took place at the Poetry Foundation in Chicago in October 2015.

JONAS ELLERSTRÖM:
This is not the first time that Malena and I have worked together. You can enumerate the things that we've done.

MALENA MÖRLING:
Yes, we've worked on several projects together. We have co translated a book of poems by Philip Levine into Swedish 1933. We have translated a full collection of poems by Edith Head Gone into English and we have also translated a couple of chapbooks by Thomas Transtromer.

JONAS ELLERSTRÖM:
Thomas was, of course, was the Nobel Prize winner of literature in 2011 and may well be the most well known Swedish poet in the world over. He passed away this spring, and Malenaand I, who were personal friends of him, both mourn him, but are very, very certain that he lives on... in what he has written and he will live on in America, as represented in a large anthology that Malenaand I have edited in Trinity University Press series, The Writer's World. It's called Swedish Writers on Writing and will feature quite a few hitherto unpublished pieces by Thomas Transtromer.

MALENA MÖRLING:
Yes, and today we'll talk a little bit about the act of translating poetry. And since we're on the topic of Thomas Transtromer, you know, the question is, when one sets out to do a collection or any kind of translation work, the question is, what is a poem? How do you translate poetry? Thomas Transtromer did a fair amount of translation himself into Swedish of various poets, and in the introduction to those particular collected translations, he says a poem is a manifestation of an invisible poem that exists beyond the conventional languages. Therefore, a translation of a poem into a new language is an opportunity to attempt to realize the original invisible poem. And in this regard, you know, poems are not static. They are ever changing as they travel from language to language. And in a sense, you could almost say that a poem is alive as long as it's being translated.

JONAS ELLERSTRÖM:
On this, I think very deeply felt and deeply thought. definition by Transtromer also liberates the translator of the accusation and maybe the self-accusation of shaping an inferior version of the poem. Instead, we are what we have done. Having been liberated by those words of Transtromer's, is that we have done equally valid versions of the original poem, which is not Transtromer's original Swedish poem, but the poem that lies at the back of that the (UNKNOWN) poem. And I will give you an example of how two versions of this same poetic vision may sound. The poems in this translation, in this volume, it has to be said they are true co translations. But in all fairness, this first stanza from a poem by Thomas Transtromer is to a very, very large extent is Malena's translation. Therefore, I feel very, very free to praise it. I read just the first stanza four lines out of a poem that is called From July in 1990 and listen to both the sound and the rhythm and be aware that there is a fundamental difference between Swedish and both British and American English.

That is the difference between the open vowels of the Swedish language and the closed, mostly closed vowels of both the British and American English. So at this table, at the Poetry Foundation in Chicago, we Malena and Jonas at another table, at a dinner table in Stockholm. We would be Malina and you and us. You hear the difference and you'll hear it even more accurately as I read these four lines. The sounds and the rhythm. The meaning is not that important in this instance. In Swedish first, (SPEAKS FOREIGN LANGUAGE). It was a funeral and I felt that the dead man read my thoughts better than I could. I do think that, these audible examples, these auditory examples of a stanza from a Transtromer poem will tell you if you listen to them closely, that this is truly the same poem.

MALENA MÖRLING:
I think it was (UNKNOWN) who said, you know, that words are not the substance of poetry. That emotion is the substance. And also he defined poetry as intonation, as a particular intonation. And I think that translating, at least for myself, it is that it's trying to replicate or an analogous intonation that somehow echoes the original, if you will, in the original language intonation of a poem.

JONAS ELLERSTRÖM:
I could give you some hard facts as to how what the anthology contains. It is called The Star by My Head. The title grew out of a line of (SPEAKS FOREIGN LANGUAGE). It's subtitled Poets from Sweden. It contains the work of eight separate distinguished poets. We chose four contemporary classics from the 20th century, and let's call that four modern classics out of the 20th century. And four contemporary poets, four women and four men, thereby aiming to present a good picture of Swedish poetry. Of the tradition that began in the early 20th century, when modernism actually by way of Germany and Russia and Finland, entered Swedish poetry and the end of that century, even though, of course, it trickles over into the 21st century. And we wanted to concentrate on these eight poets so as to give them enough space to let each poet's voice become truly audible.

MALENA MÖRLING:
Yes, and we begin with a (UNKNOWN) who lived at the (UNKNOWN) century. She was a Finland Swedish poet, and she was probably the first Scandinavian modernist. Of course, in the very beginning when she was very young, she wrote Inform, but then started writing. And she also actually started writing poetry in German, and then I think wrote a couple of poems in Russian, and I think French as well, I'm not sure. So anyways, when she started writing in Swedish, finally, that's when her work sort of broke out into free verse and had this kind of like wild or ragged, passionate form. And I would like to read one of her poems now. And it's an Ars Poetica. As I said, she was an extraordinarily passionate poet and a visionary of sorts. And an incredibly intense. She died very young at the age of 31. She had tuberculosis. And of course, that the knowledge that she was not going to possibly live very long, I think intensified everything in her life. And I love this particular poem because it not only... it's about writing, but it's about the wildness of the possibility of poetry.

It's called decision. I'm a remarkably mature person, but no one knows me. My friends create a false image of me. I'm not tame. I have wade tameness in my eagle claws and know it well. Oh eagle what sweetness in your wings flight. Will you stay silent like everything? Would you perhaps like to write? You will never write again. Every poem shall be the tearing up of a poem. Not a poem, but claw marks. And it's that. So refusal of settling at a definition of what poetry is. And it's that kind of reminds me again almost of the quote from Transtromer about the invisible poem and the idea that poetry must always reinvent what it is. Which reminds me of a 16th century Japanese poet, Ryokan, who says my poems are poems. My poems are not poems. When you understand that my poems are not poems, we can begin to discuss poetry.

JONAS ELLERSTRÖM:
To give the American listeners some sense of the history of Swedish poetry and what might possibly characterize at large, at least the main currents of it. I could... I would like to read another Sardinian poem once again. And this is because it also has to do with stars. It plays well along the title of the book. And it is a good example of both of what the translation can achieve. And also I think of the main characteristics of Swedish poetry. Malena mentioned that (UNKNOWN) was born in Swedish speaking Finland, and there is a small Swedish speaking minority in Finland, which was in fact a Swedish province up until 1809 and then Russian up until 1917. (UNKNOWN) was a citizen of Russia as she made her debut in 1916. This was one of the poems in that book. It's called The Stars. In Swedish first, (SPEAKS FOREIGN LANGUAGE). The stars, as night arrives, I stand on the steps and listen. The stars are swarming the garden and I stand in darkness. Did you hear? A star fell with a clang. Don't walk barefoot in the grass.

My garden is full of shards. I think this is almost an archetypal situation for a Scandinavian poem. The lone figure standing at the boundary of outside and inside, she standing on the steps of the house. So she is between human culture and untamed nature and counter pointing her position on earth is the night sky and the stars. And in the third line from the end, a star falls. It creates a sound. It's very much like (UNKNOWN) famous frog jumping into the pond. This is the sound that makes the poem happen. And this is a connection between sky and ground, between human being and star. It is perhaps an omen. And it's a connection between man and nature, man and the universe. You cannot be entirely sure that this is a positive connection. As the last line says. My garden is full of shards. So the star has splintered against the earth and made it dangerous to walk barefoot in the grass of the garden. This metaphysical relation is one I think that you can find in very much of Swedish modern poetry.

It is certainly a presence that is felt in Thomas' poems, and if you listened intently, you would hear also, of course, that the star (SPEAKS FOREIGN LANGUAGE) in Swedish turns into shards (SPEAKS FOREIGN LANGUGE) in Swedish. So there is a very, keen observation of language as well. Actually, here (UNKNOWN) predates poems that that would be written 90 to 100 years after this. In her observation of the sounds and the textures of language, incorporating those making them meaningful within this absolutely remarkable seven-line poem.

MALENA MÖRLING:
But of course, poetry is made of words. A poem is not its words, you know. A poem is unlike a math problem more than the sum of its parts. But it's not its words yet. It is its words and its silences combined. And I know that the poem you read has that clang. And I just thought I would now read a poem by (UNKNOWN) who perhaps is the one, maybe the second Modernist. I think his debut collection came out in 1932, and it's called Late on Earth. And I would like to read the first poem in that book. And in a sense, you can say also that, you know, he was a groundbreaking surrealist in Sweden, and to me, you know, a mystic. So anyways, I will read this, it's untitled. The flowers are sleeping in the window. And the lamp is staring light. And the window stares thoughtlessly into the dark. The paintings soullessly, show their untrusted content. And the flies are standing still on the walls and thinking. The flowers are leaning toward the night and the lamp is spinning light in the corner. The cat spins yarns of wool to sleep with.

On the stove from time to time, the coffee pot is snoring with comfort and the children play quietly with words on the floor. Set with a white cloth. The table is waiting for someone who steps will never come up the stairs. A train that pierces the silence in the distance does not reveal the secret of things. But fate is counting the strokes of the clock with decimals. And as you mentioned that sort of the cosmic perspective that, you know, is often present in many of these poems that we selected for this book. I'm thinking of the poem (UNKNOWN) by (UNKNOWN). Would you like to read it?

JONAS ELLERSTRÖM:
I would, yes, because it's a beautiful poem and it's another poem about stars. I would like to add some words, however, on the poem that you've just chosen to read, which is a favorite of mine. It was written in 1932, or possibly at earliest in autumn 1931. (UNKNOWN) had been to Paris and London in 1927, 1928, while he was still a rich young man before his inheritance, before he squandered his inheritance, and his stocks lost all their value in the stock market crash of 1929. That's what made him a poet, for which we should be grateful. If you listened closely to Malina's reading, you would have heard that as a member of the audience in Minneapolis last night told us, there is a surprise in every line. The things do not do what they are supposed to do. The flowers are sleeping. The coffee pot is snoring. ET cetera. This was (UNKNOWN) very personal take on French surrealism, which he knew very well, having been to Paris reading the literary journals only three years after the first surrealist manifesto was published.

But what happens here is what has happened time and time again in Swedish poetry that foreign influences. They arrive a bit late. On the other hand, they are nearly always turned into something much more specifically Swedish. The delay, which may seem like a phenomenon that would be typical of a country that is situated on the very margin of Europe that is a bit of a backwater country, really. But what happens is that these influences get... they get naturally adapted into the greater tradition of Swedish poetry. I think this poem is an absolutely beautiful example of a surrealism adapted to a specific sensibility and a phrase like a wonderful phrase like the children play quietly with words on the floor contains a melancholy that you would never find in the works of (UNKNOWN). So, things happen as influences in Sweden has always been wide open to influences. Influences can be contemporary, and they can of course come from other time zones, other ages as well. (UNKNOWN) is a remarkably versatile poet, I think.

I would be hard pressed to think of an equivalent either in England or the United States. Of the many directions that his work took between 1932 and 1968 when he died. This is to some extent, this is a Chinese poem by (UNKNOWN). It's named after a Chinese cultural period, rich in poetry, rich in ceramics and pottery. (UNKNOWN) creates two short stanzas, a motif or a field with an emotional motive. Very clear, very precise, very undramatic. So this is Chinese poetry married to a Swedish sensibility. I think the translation will suffice very well. (UNKNOWN), The night to night is a starry, clear one. The air is clean and cold. The moon is searching in all things for its lost inheritance. A window, a blooming branch. And that's enough. No flowers without earth. No earth without space. No space without something blooming.

MALENA MÖRLING:
Yes, I will... I think, move on to read a Transtromer poem. I started translating Transtromer when I was in graduate school and published a handful of my translations in for the Living and the Dead, came out in 1995 and then again began to translate him a number of years ago. And I would like to read a poem called Secrets on the Way. Which is also the title of one of his earlier collections. Daylight struck the face of one who slept. He received a livelier dream but did not wake. Darkness struck the face of one who walked. Among the others in the sun's strong, impatient rays. Suddenly it turned dark, as in a downpour. I stood in a room that held every moment. A butterfly museum. And still the sun is as strong as before. Its impatient brushes painted the world. And of course, Thomas Transtromer was a master of metaphor. You see, it illustrated in this poem with the metaphor of the Butterfly Museum. And I will read one more Transtromer poem. I'll read the one that... One that's called April in silence.

Spring lies deserted. The dark velvet ditch creeps by my side, not reflecting anything. All that shines are yellow flowers. I'm carried in my shadow like a violin in its black case. All I want to say gleams out of reach like the silver in a pawn shop.

JONAS ELLERSTRÖM:
We were asked the other night if we've done presentations and readings in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., and at the Open Book Cultural Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. And we were asked by a member of the audience if there were Swedish poets who spoke out in a more dramatic voice, who in this man's metaphor, I think played on all the keys of the piano. And I politely, I hope, advised him to listen a bit more closely to Thomas Transtromer, who has somewhat unfairly received the reputation of being a poet, of balance, of exact observation, of meticulous metaphors. There is a lot of drama going on, both on and certainly below the surface in his poems. You have to remember that this was a man who, as a psychiatrist, worked with juvenile delinquents for a long time of his life and who certainly observes the drama of human existence in himself as well as in his fellow human beings. But he will not adopt the voice of an Allen Ginsberg, for example, simply because it does not suit him.

You should not confuse the equilibrium of the formal equilibrium of a Transtromer poem and think that it is devoid of intense drama.

MALENA MÖRLING:
I just wanted to say one of the reasons that Transtromer is so loved around the world and translated into so many languages, I believe is possibly the depth that is found in his poems that rise up to meet the words. I think perhaps that is again, then again, maybe that invisible poem that everyone on this planet knows something about. Maybe. Perhaps that's what, why his work resonates on a global scale. And it is true, you know, the drama that you mentioned, (UNKNOWN), is the layers of the drama or the intensity of what occurs in a transtromer poem is by no means tame. (LAUGHTER). It's really complex and alive. But often said with very simple words in a direct manner. And that's what makes him so remarkable.

JONAS ELLERSTRÖM:
Swedish political tradition is, it's old. It dates from the late 16th century. It also remarkably rich tradition. And it has to be remembered that there are 9 million inhabitants of Sweden, which is a very small amount of people. And it is a country that is removed from the main hubs of commerce, of political events. ET cetera. I do think that has been a strength to Swedish poetry. I would dare to compare the qualities of Swedish poetry, the richness of its tradition. With Irish and Northern Irish poetry, which has also flourished during the 20th century. I think very much on behalf of its being removed from the power centers of New York, Los Angeles, London, et cetera. There is a lot of integrity to Swedish poetry. And I think we should move on to some of the contemporary poets that we have included in the anthology. And I would like to read a poem by another Finland Swedish poet to (UNKNOWN). It's obvious that she is a poet of our time. Yet I think to a careful listener, you will hear the voice of (UNKNOWN) speaking through her.

I read one of her poems that is titled there's a Finish place name in the title Carries. The poem is called, the angels of (UNKNOWN). Walk in much too light shoes in February at the train station in (UNKNOWN) back and forth smoking. Trains arrive and depart. Tomorrow will be the same. Snow falls lightly glittering. It falls lightly on their eyelashes. They breathe lightly like aluminum. They know the god forsaken places. They laugh. Nothing terrifies us more than when they laugh. Nothing terrifies us more than the god forsaken places. And that which is a red rimmed. Once again, here is a connection between the metaphysical world, the angels, and the human beings. Once again, their presence may not be wholly benign.

MALENA MÖRLING:
Yes, and I will read a poem following that also by (UNKNOWN) and it's untitled. Tell me a tale of lies. So I dare sleep. Sing me a song of lies so I have the strength to wake. Lie to me and say that I have warmth, that I am loved. That I'm not afraid. Speak softly of all the summers that remain. Smile at me and say that everything will get better. Otherwise, I won't believe you.

JONAS ELLERSTRÖM:
These are poems of the 1990s. Our anthology begins in 1916 and ends with Bruno Coelho's poems. The most recent of those that we have translated date from 2008. In all fairness, it has to be said that there are, of course, elements of Swedish political tradition that we have left out, and also that we have followed it up to a certain point. We make room for another possible collaboration in the future over other translations, other translators to step in and present Swedish postmodern poetry to an American audience. We did the few of those poets in a section for the magazine Poetry International. We did a Swedish section and there you get some of these very recent examples of a new poetical style. This anthology captures the main tradition of this time period. And I do think that these poets, they suit our voices as translators as well. I think we have glimpsed those original poems behind the poem.

MALENA MÖRLING:
Yes, I think I think it does not represent this time period, but it catches a glimpse of it for sure. And you know, the poems were selected from, basically our love for them. And, you know, as Octavia Paz said, that he began translating poetry as an act of love. He said it was nothing if it was not an act of love. I would like to jump to another contemporary Swedish poet, Bruno Coelho. Who also uses surrealism and is I think often performs his poems more in Sweden. He's not a quiet reader of his poems and he has quite a cult following. Is that correct? You know,

JONAS ELLERSTRÖM:
Yes, certainly.

MALENA MÖRLING:
I also find that his poems do so well as they lay quietly on the page. Of course, hearing a poem read out loud and reading it on the page are two vastly different experiences. And I will read a poem called Hold Him There. That's from his recent collection called Black Like Silver. The tile oven stood silent and cold like a queen in her long white gown and guarded reigned over the room with her single brass eye. She saw everything that occurred where the dye had rolled under the couch. That one of the crayons was broken in half, that the purse on the table was thin and nearly empty. She saw and heard everything and never made a face. Not even when New Year's Eve snow or death came to visit. She heard the old wall telephone ring beside the mirror in the hallway, heard the sparrows scratching the windowsill. She heard the black steam engine pull its freight around the room, rattle its way through the evening darkness. With its tiny little eyes raised above the carpet. And in the dream, everything was obvious and simple.

Without thinking I had found my childhood listen to the dial tones that went through. And when my mom answered, I asked to speak to myself. After a long while, a seven-year-old boy took the receiver, and his voice pierced my heart. I asked how it all was. I said I often thought of him and missed him. But I must have interrupted his playing. He seemed both preoccupied and disinterested. Every attempt at conversation was met with an impatient silence. I heard him shift his feet on the linoleum floor. Nothing I said or asked about. Nothing I tried to say or explain could hold him there.

JONAS ELLERSTRÖM:
That is a beautiful and I think quite Swedish poem though one who listens to reading his collections will see that he is also something of an heir to the voice of Bob Dylan. I think we should add that we would get a gratitude to to Ilya Kaminsky later, the Poetry Foundation of Chicago, who actually got us started by commissioning this Swedish section for Poetry International and then selected this volume to be published in the Series Poets in the World. A milkweed edition of Minneapolis took care of the publication, and the book is now set to go into its third printing. So I do think that that here is a good possibility for an English-speaking audience to hear those stars fall from the sky.

ED HERMAN:
That was Jonas Ellerstrom speaking with Malena Morling. The Star by My Head is a bilingual collection co-edited and co translated by Malena Morling and Jonas Ellerstrom. It includes eight of Sweden's most highly regarded poets with poems that span from early modernism to present day. The Star by My Head was published in 2014 by Milkweed Editions in partnership with the Poetry Foundation. Malena Morling is the author of two books of poetry in English. Ocean Avenue and Astoria. She's also translated into English the poetry of Edison Grande and Thomas Transtromer and has translated into Swedish, the poetry of American poet Philip Levine. Jonas Ellerstrom writes in Swedish. He has published numerous essays about poetry and two collections of his own poems. He's also translated many volumes of poetry into Swedish, including works by Blake, Rambo, T.S, Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath and Philip Levine. This program was recorded at the Poetry Foundation in Chicago on October 2nd, 2015 as part of International Poets in Conversation and was sponsored by the Harriet Monroe Poetry Institute.

You can learn more about the world of poetry by visiting Poetry Foundation. org, where you'll also find articles by and about poets and online archive of more than 13,000 poems. The Harriet blog about poetry, the complete back issues of poetry, magazine and other audio programs to download. I'm Ed Herrmann. Thanks for listening to poetry lectures from Poetry Foundation.org.