Tomas Transtrὄmer*

Tomas Transtrὄmer (1931―2015) is a Swedish poet whose work plays on the edge of comprehension for his readers using elements of modernism, expressionism, and surrealism. His poems convey a sense of wonder and mystery at the movement of history and the beauty of the Scandinavian landscape ― through portrayals of musicians and artists, and images from nature.

His poetry has been translated into more than sixty languages. Some of those who have translated his work into English include, Robin Fulton, May Swenson, John F. Deane, and Robert Bly. In 2007 the Griffin Trust gave him their Lifetime Recognition Award, and in 2011 he received the Nobel Prize. He wrote 15 poetry collections over his career.

The following was translated by Robert Bly.

from Schubertiana (IV)

How much we have to take on trust every minute we live in
-----order not to drop through the earth!
Take on trust the snow masses clinging to rocksides over the
-----town.
Take on trust the unspoken promises, and the smile of
-----agreement, trust that the telegram does not concern us, and
that the sudden ax blow from inside is not coming.
Trust the axles we ride on down the thruway among the swarm
-----of steel bees magnified three hundred times.
But none of that stuff is really worth the trust we have.
The five string instruments say that we can take something else
-----on trust, and they walk with us a bit on the road.
As when the lightbulb goes out on the stair, and the hand
-----follows ― trusting it ― the blind banister rail that finds its
-----way in the dark.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Tomas Transtrὄmer: first post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. His latest poetry collection is Ampersand (2018, Cascade). His books are available through Amazon, and Wipf & Stock, including the anthologies The Turning Aside, and Adam, Eve, & the Riders of the Apocalypse.

Olav H. Hauge

Olav H. Hauge (1908—1994) is a poet of Norway who also learned to speak English, German and French. He translated many foreign poets into Norwegian, including Tennyson, Yeats, Robert Browning, and Bertolt Brecht. Hauge translated into Norweigian the poetry of Robert Bly, who also translated Hauge’s work into English.

Hauge’s early poetry is quite traditional, but his later work demonstrates the influence of modernism, and Chinese poetry. He lived all his life in the western Norwegian village of Ulvik.

The following poem is from Luminous Spaces which was translated by Olav Grinde.

Always I Expect to Find

Always I expect to find
something that makes life worthwhile,
something worth winning,
which shall lift me up, strengthen
my will and brace my back.

Free me from this curse of doubt
so humbly I may bend my knee
to life’s eternal truth, let it
guide me right, give me goals
to reach for, faith and peace.

Blessed is the man who, drawn onward,
sees what is writ in the Lord’s hand.
Serpent becomes staff, the burning
bush is green again. Find your path
before your severed day is here!

This post was suggested by my friend Burl Horniachek.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. His latest poetry collection is Ampersand (2018, Cascade). His books are available through Amazon, and Wipf & Stock, including the anthologies The Turning Aside, and Adam, Eve, & the Riders of the Apocalypse.

Tomas Tranströmer

Tomas Tranströmer is a Swedish poet and recipient of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Literature. His poems have been translated into more than fifty languages.

Prior to his stroke in 1990, Tranströmer was also a talented pianist; since then – his friend Robert Bly tells us – Swedish composers have been sending him piano works, written to be played only using the left hand. This affinity with music manifests itself within his poetry.

Bill Coyle said in Contemporary Poetry Review, “Tranströmer is a Christian poet, though not a churchgoing one, and he answers that question [whether the world is intentional or not] in the affirmative. I suspect it’s one of the reasons – aside from temperament and sheer talent – for his facility with metaphor.”

Another important feature of his world-view is our imperfection, and the incompleteness of the created world. In “The Outpost” he says, “I am the place / where creation is working itself out”. This idea also comes through in the following poem; this is Robert Bly's translation, from the collection The Half-Finished Heaven.

Romanesque Arches

Tourists have crowded into the half-dark of the enormous
-----Romanesque church.
Vault opening behind vault and no perspective.
A few candle flames flickered.
An angel whose face I couldn't see embraced me
and his whisper went all through my body:
"Don't be ashamed to be a human being; be proud!
Inside you one vault after another opens endlessly.
You'll never be complete, and that's as it should be."
Tears blinded me
as we were herded out into the fiercely sunlit piazza,
together with Mr. and Mrs. Jones, Herr Tanaka and Signora
-----Sabatini;
within each of them vault after vault opened endlessly.

This is the first Kingdom Poets post about Tomas Transtrὄmer: second post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the award-winning author of the poetry collections Poiema (Wipf & Stock) and So The Moon Would Not Be Swallowed (Rubicon Press). They are both available at: www.dsmartin.ca