Airmail (18 page)

It started with some poems. A man in Riga translated me into Latvian and 2 poems “Telpas: Kas vala, un telpas, kas ciet” (Öppna och slutna rum) and “Par vesturi” (Om historien) were printed together with some Lindegren and Ekelöf in a poetry book
Dzejas diena
—printed in 30,000 copies and sold out in a week in a country with less than 2 million Latvian-speaking inhabitants. My translator was sent to Sweden in 1965 to study Swedish for a year and after that to work on the Riga radio—they have regular sendings in Swedish. When he returned he was not sufficiently cooperative so he got fired and now he is playing viola in a musical comedy orchestra for 85 rubles a week. He is married to Vizma Belševica, the most gifted poetess in Latvia, now dangerously in disgrace for something she has written. So they are a controversial couple and I love them. She is very heroic, he is more simply human. He had translated many poems of mine that could not be published for the present (“Allegro” e.g. is impossible of course but more astonishing is that “Den halvfärdiga himlen” is suspected—because of the line “våra istidsateljéers röda djur”!) So at last I am regarded as a dangerous political poet! They arranged an unofficial reading in their home and I met some 15 poets, musicians etc. from Latvia. The next day I was identified and Swedish-speaking official people came to the hotel to take care of me. One was a very nice chap, the other was like a character from an early Graham Greene novel. We talked about cultural relations, ice hockey etc. Every night in Riga the telephone called, at midnight!, and when I lifted the receiver someone rang off. That did not happen in Tallinn so I regard Estonia as less controlled than Latvia. Another difference: in Tallinn the churches are still churches, in Riga most of them are transformed into cafés, planetariums, lecture-rooms (or other would-be-wise temples). (They say the Estonians are more willing to enter the Party, climb, and rule it from within—they are more practical than heroic.) Anyhow the voyage was useful, I think, some ways for communication have been opened (for books, records and ultimately persons). Surprisingly many were studying Swedish more or less by themselves, from old books. They are longing for contact with us and we have been indifferent for so long—with exception of a few crusaders operating with reactionary exile organizations. Unofficial contacts are opposed both by the reactionary part of the exile organizations (who look forward to the “liberation” of the countries through a third world war) and by the Soviets who want to keep them isolated, inside Russia. I will give you a probably bad poem I wrote there, functioning within the special emotional situation. I gave it to my friends before leaving Riga, for them to read when they get colorless letters from me in the future. It is very important that the receivers could not be identified so I called it simply:

“Ortoceratiter” is a special type of fossil, often found in Baltic limestone; they are a little like fossil microphones (from the Silurian age). This is the end of the travel report. Love to Carol and the children! I will send you a new “book” (11 poems only) before the end of the month—it is not printed by Bonniers, we have made it ourselves in the so-called “Författarförlaget”—a death-blow to commercial, capitalistic, feudalistic book-printing. Good night.

Yours Tomas

26 April, ’70

Dear Tomas,

Thank you for the marvellous letter about the Latvian trip! It’s all so strange—the telephones ringing late at night in Riga...and no one there—The Europeans really have developed these claustrophobic anti-people technological harassments far beyond what we have done here. I think it’s because Europe became over-populated first. More and more I think that many curious events such as burning down banks, telephone harassment at night, seemingly rational, are actually rat-reactions that come when the cage gets too full of rats. As Neruda said in 1934:

It so happens I am sick of being a man.

I like “Till vänner bakom engräns,” but I long for more anguish between Parts II and III, anguish as clear as that marvellous hostility made clear in II with the ordene sum “visar tänderna” to the censors.

I don’t want to take the long view, and be rocked asleep, that
soon.

I’m getting tired of being a
speaker
—but I only have two trips left—one to N.Y. this week, and then to Honolulu in May. Enclosing report of recent reading with Senator McCarthy. We became good friends. At one point he said, “Just think! If I had been elected President,
you
would have been at the prayer breakfasts instead of Billy Graham! What a loss!”

I’m looking forward to your new “book”—write soon! Our love to all your flickor, especially your wife, whose luminous face I often see.

Your friend,

Robert

P.S. Carol is deluged with requests from Sweden for the “Teeth-Mother” folder—evidently Gunnar Harding had a note about it in
Expressen.
(The teeth-mother is really Pat Nixon) (The foreign poets at a recent conference at the Library of Congress, by the way, got at a White House reception: This, a copy of
The Collected Poems of Elizabeth Bishop,
signed by Pat Nixon! How’s that!) (The mind boggles)

Göran says that you and he may do a Swedish version of the teeth-mother. It would be nice to have it in a similar folder, free, or at a very low price. But whatever you decide is fine...The Swedes are rich anyway...love, Robert

Västerås 2 May 70

Dear Robert,

one of the reasons why ectomorphs seldom succeed in politics is THE PHYSIOLOGICAL OVERRESPONSE. Nixon’s Cambodia speech is sitting like a FISHBONE in my throat, I simply can’t eat these days, only small amounts, I feel sick, I can only hope that you and all wise people have strength to take up the fight, without desperation, with a quiet, effective, white-hot fury against this latest bestial stupidity.

My life is confused just now. Today I got my new book. I’ll send it in a week. I absolutely don’t give a damn what they write about it. Tomorrow I’m going to Budapest—invited to attend a “Journées de la Poésie à Budapest”—the Hungarian Writers’ Union thinks I’m a big cultural personality in Sweden! What a mistake! But they’ve sent plane tickets and I’m going. My fugitive friends have urged me to go—otherwise they’ll just invite some Party poet from Bulgaria. I’ve never been to a deluxe conference of this kind before; it makes me ashamed. Voznesensky is coming too. The discussions will be carried on in French, Russian, and Hungarian. Since I am phenomenally bad at French, I’ll just sit there like an idiot. But I hope to be able to sneak away from the program and see my friends from the earlier visit.

Maybe my appetite will come back. In any case I want to live long enough to see Nixon lose the next presidential election. He darkens the sun. Otherwise there’s plenty to be happy about in the family circle.

Our household has been augmented by two dwarf rabbits. We escaped a dog this time. But how it will be when summer comes I don’t know. Probably the house is going to resemble Noah’s Ark more and more. Your son would feel at home here.

I LOVE YOU ALL.

Tomas

Västerås 10 June [1970]

Dear Robert,

I am longing very much for news from you. Good news, I mean, to hear that you and Carol and the children are well. In the meantime take this little book and these clippings from the Swedish scene. I am in the ridiculous position of being FAMOUS again. They love me again, even the Marxistic hard-hats. Why? The small book is now printed in 7000 copies, about 5000 are thought to be sold already. It is full summer—I rush directly from my poor clients into the water.

Love from all of us

       Tomas

20 June, ’70

Dear Tomas,

I keep waiting for your new book, but all I get are new books of Göran Sonnevi! That’s OK, but his books don’t have enough lairs, mole-nests, skulls full of wet straw, interiors of horse-ears, soggy cities under wet stones etc. (Man does not live by air alone.) Oh, how wise I am!

Tell me how the Budapest journey was! Did you see Voznesensky? I’d love to write to him, and tell him how much I like his poems.

I postponed my new book three or four months, while I struggle this summer with yet another draft of my long poem on Great Mother Fears.

If you send me some new poems, I’ll send you some! We are all well, staying home. J Wright has gone to Vienna, Louis Simpson to England.

Blessings, Robert

29 July, ’70

Dear Tomas,

Your new book did come! And I like it very much! So much that I’m thinking maybe I should just translate the whole thing, in the same order you have it, and have it printed as a little pamphlet. Then, when you come over here next, on a triumphal reading tour, like Charles Dickens, you’ll have
two
books on the market!

I enjoyed the reviews also—the Marxist critics seem to have collapsed, and have stopped attacking you as a medieval pope—That is ominous—bad news for the Left—I’m afraid they’re losing their morale.

Only the small town critics, as in Örebro, are still malicious, holding up their poisoned end, or pen, or whatever it is.

You asked how we are—we’re all very well! I go swimming every afternoon with the children, teaching them to dive, and I resemble Julie Nixon more each day.

Tonight there is a parade—of pets for the children, who must dress their pets. Mary is taking an extraordinary chicken we have—extremely interested in the human race, contemptuous of the company of other chickens, insists on roosting each night on one of the outdoor stairs, alone—his name is Orville. So Orville’s wildest dream comes true tonight—he’s going to be dressed as a human being! Or nearly so—he gets some Raggedy Ann doll clothes...I suppose this piece of good luck will completely unbalance him, and we’ll have to send him to the psychiatrist. Hubris is no doubt dangerous in chickens, he may end up as a delinquent, a demonstrator, a “bum”...probably able to make love only in garderoben...

Please write, and send me some news from the island...and from your dear family...

Robert

Runmarö 11-8-70

Dear Robert,

I am writing to you on a dirty piece of paper—we are short of paper here in the Island because I have been struggling with a very LONG poem (about the Baltic—from all points of view). It is raining today and we are a little upset because Monica, Great Mother, is ill, she should remain in bed, she has a sore throat. She is probably exhausted too—we have had an endless stream of visitors, mostly children with insomnia problems, and sometimes grown up people with emotional problems—the place has been overcrowded—the latest guest is a cat who refuses to leave the house. This summer we have 6 chickens, 2 guinea pigs, 2 rabbits and outside 1 hedgehog and 1 owl who is sitting all the night in a pine at the north-west corner of the house shouting WHZIII...WHZII.

It was good to get your letter. I am of course very positive to the idea of making a pamphlet of “mörkerseende.” But the title in English seems to be “dark vision” and that sounds very commonplace pathetic. Perhaps something like “dark adaptation” would be better. What has happened to the 20 poems? 10 months ago you wrote “your book is being printed now” and a simple arithmetic calculation gives the result that if your printing capacity is 2 poems in one month the book would be almost completed now. But don’t hurry! In the meantime I have got these wonderful magazines. The latest was
Kayak
—an old dream of mine has been fulfilled! I felt like being represented in Madame Tussaud’s museum. I hope Mr Di Palma (is that the name?) will send his mag when it is brought out.

Do you know that Birger Norman (a nice man and a sometimes good poet) has written an essay about you and Senghor in a Christian cultural magazine called
Vår Lösen
? I will send it as soon as I can find it—I have only read it in a library. I think the little volume
Krig och tystnad
has made a strong impression, even influence, on some people here. In a small town where I gave a reading, one schoolboy from the audience suddenly went up and read aloud from your (mistranslated) introduction to the book and asked me about my reaction to your ideas. It was very strange to hear him start: “The great American poet Robert Bly has said that...etc.” It was in Karlskrona, in Blekinge. The therapeutic influence comes mainly from the honest and sensible effort to bring the inner and the outer worlds together—people are hungry for crossways now.

I hope you will not destroy anything in “Teeth-Mother” when you rewrite it. Be careful. The only weakness in the poem is the title. But titles are difficult. Sonnevi has a large manuscript ready but can’t find the title—he has a list of about 200 proposals, mostly of the type “Och nu,” “Här är språket,” “Dag för dag,” “Ordet är vitt” etc., dry constructions—and he is not satisfied, so the book will be delayed or printed with the absolute capitulation title of “Dikter 1963–70.”