Blue Ejder - Karin Boye

Some of my translations of poems by Karin Boye have been set to music by the Swedish/English duo Blue Ejder, in a CD album featuring Sunniva Brynnel (voice, piano, kalimba), Aubin Vanns (guitars) and Neil Yates (flugelhorn, voice).

The Thaw

Foreword Reviews have published a review of Ólafur Gunnarsson's latest collection of short stories. The stories are in English, translated by the author:

For all its thought-provoking content, the translation is uneven: “The nurse was tending to the child tenderly,” could have been rendered using a verb and an adjective that do not share the same root, for example. Likewise, it would be unlikely that a seven-year-old character would refer to his class art display as an “exhibition.” However, at other times, the translation fits with the story and showcases the author’s way with words, as in this description of an airplane accident: “And like a black goose that had been shot, the enormous plane crash-landed on the gravel airfield.” Or this ironic phrase that expresses a role reversal of a father and his terminally ill daughter: “[She] sat there in her wheelchair like a solemn old woman expressing her approval of her well-behaved grandson.”

Overall, in this elegant collection, Gunnarsson’s stories succeed.

Walker on Water

Unnamed Press, U.S.A., have published a new collection of prose pieces by the Estonian poet Kristiina Ehin, Walker on Water. An excerpt from Ilmar Lehtpere's translation:

Lately I’ve discovered that my husband’s head opens at the back. I hadn’t noticed that before. There’s a hatch there. When Jaan comes home after a tiring day at work, he opens the hatch and takes his brains out. They steam on the table, but Jaan stretches his legs out on the sofa and looks at me with his happy, drowsy eyes.

The Beggar and the Hare

My translation of Tuomas Kyrö's novel Kerjäläinen ja jänis (The Beggar and the Hare) will be published by Short Books on March 6, and is available for pre-order as a hardback or a Kindle download.

One Evening in October

I'm working on a complete translation of Tua Forsström's collection En kväll i oktober rodde jag ut på sjön (One Evening in October I Rowed Out on the Lake, Schildts & Söderströms, 2012), to be published by Bloodaxe in a bilingual Swedish-English facing-text edition in early 2015.

Versions of some of the translations have already appeared in Books from Finland and Swedish Book Review.

Two Poems

by Gösta Ågren

The Future Is...

The future is unfurnished

as if it were a room

in place of an idea,

but your plans are ready

and you start work,

as to begin with fate is

so light that we don’t notice

the burden. The inevitable

needs no emphasis.


 July. Night.

The road doesn’t release

its grip on the car.

Driving is only

rhythm. The journey

moves slowly through

the summer night, which is

white with now. Sadness

heals sorrow.

from Centralsång (2013)

translated from Finland-Swedish by David McDuff

The Bridge of Sleep

by Saima Harmaja

Long is the days’ journey

to evening’s dim domain.

Lonely the blissful moment

exhausted by the pain:

I slumber in blue evening,

a bridge spans in between,

taking me from time’s chasms

to the land of the unseen.

When darkness wraps the senses

and, warm, the mind succumbs,

beside me they are present,

they breathe, the  heavenly ones.

Gone is the cruelest longing.

From my pain I am freed

he smiles with shining eyes

the one whom I met in my need.

He that went on ahead,

precious, grown cold his brow,

like a pale star of spring

he stays here with me now.

Broken the frame of his body.

Spirit and earth are one.

Into my tear-hot eyes

the brightness trickles down.

Waking in midst of sleep

I see, veiled by dust from above:

it is one, the land that lies there,

the kingdom of longing and love.

Across the bitter limit

on gleaming threads set free,

love goes from the circle of time

to a land that I cannot yet see.

May 3, 1936

UNEN SILTA

Pitkä on päivien retki

illan himmeyteen.

Yksi on autuas hetki

kivusta uupuneen:

nukkua siintoon illan,

uneen, mi kaartua suo

pois ajan kuiluista sillan

näkymätönten luo.

Kun jo on hämärä hellä

kietonut aistimet,

luonani hengähdellä

alkavat taivaiset.

Poissa on kaipaus julmin.

Tuskani irroittain

hymyy hohtavin kulmin

hän, jota nääntyen hain.

Hän, joka edeltä lähti,

kallis ja kylmennyt,

kuin kevätkalpea tähti

luonani viipyy nyt.

Murtunut on kehä ruumiin.

Yhtä on henki ja maa.

Silmiini kyynelkuumiin

kirkkaus uppoaa.

Valvoen keskellä unta

nään, tomuhuntuinen:

yksi on valtakunta

kaipuun ja rakkauden.

Ylitse katkeran rajan

hohtavin langoin käy

rakkaus piiristä ajan

maahan, mi vielä ei näy.

 3.5.1936

translated from Finnish by David McDuff

Aale Tynni

Books from Finland magazine has published a selection of my translations of poems by the Finnish poet Aale Tynni (1913-1997). There is an introductory essay by the scholar and academic Tuula Hökkä.

Pakko paha?

"If there is no requirement to choose another language in place of Swedish, the fear is that a lot of people will no longer study a language," said Kari Jukarainen of the Finnish Language teachers association. "We would have a large group of pupils whose only foreign language is English."

http://yle.fi/uutiset/teachers_fear_for_language_skills_without_compulsory_swedish/7021451

Misnomers

Mårten Westö finds some curious errors in the Finnish translations of subtitles in Swedish-language films: 

Tabben fick mig ändå att ägna resten av filmen åt att analysera den finska textningen.

Den visade sig vara en katastrof.

Det vimlade av fel och direkt missvisande information i nästan varje scen. Ibland blev det snudd på galghumoristiskt, som när pappans svenska arbetskompis säger till sin norske kollega: ”Och så får vi slita röven av oss. Det är bara för att ni har oljan.” På finska: Saamme huhkia toden teolla. Saadaksemme olutta (En i och för sig kul freudiansk felsägning som varje frustrerad översättare säkert kan identifiera sig med.)

Central Song

Reviewing Gösta Ågren’s new collection Centralsång, Michel Ekman writes about the “deceptive calm” of Ågren’s poetry:

Vår plikt är att minnas grymheten, men själva minnesakten kräver ett mått av ro och avskildhet... En dal i våldet hette det stora urval ur sin produktion som Gösta Ågren en gång gav ut. Spänningen mellan å ena sidan iakttagandet / formulerandet och å andra sidan det blinda och ständiga våldet som genomsyrar tillvaron går igenom hela hans författarskap.

Ark Books, Copenhagen

Ditte Nesdam Madsen writes from Copenhagen:

Ark Books, a new international bookshop at Møllegade 10 in Copenhagen from spring 2014. We are opening the doors as an English bookshop selling all types of books from classics to new undiscovered titles that normally wouldn't reach the Danish market. We are also going to have a small selection from the other big European languages as French, German, Italian etc. We are also going to promote our wonderful Danish literature to non-Danish speaking readers in Copenhagen by selling Danish Literature in translation.

We are all volunteers and the shop is going to be non-profit. 

For the moment, we're working hard to achieve the dream. However, it is difficult to get funding to a small work-in-progress project based on literature. We have therefore created a crowdfunding campaign with wonderful gifts. You can check it out here: 

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/ark-books-copenhagen-a-non-profit-english-language-bookshop/x/5282177

Besides that we're having an event December 5th in the cellar of Literaturhaus with the Danish author Helle Helle and her translator Martin Aitken. The author and the translator are going to read the book in Danish and English and afterwards they will discuss the relationship between author and translator and translation as a discipline. Feel free to join us for this amazing night! We're planning on having several events as this one, once the shop is open.

Molossus

In its World Poetry Portfolio series, Molossus literary quarterly has published a selection of poems by Pia Tafdrup in my translation.

Laborare et Amare

I'm working on a translation of Tuula Karjalainen's new biography of Tove Jansson, Tove Jansson – Tee työtä ja rakasta (Tove Jansson – Work and Love, Tammi, 2014) for Penguin Press, UK. In addition to illustrations, the Finnish text also contains excerpts from Tove Jansson's letters and notebooks, and these I am translating from the original Swedish. The English edition is scheduled for publication in autumn next year.

Acceptance Speech

Here's my acceptance speech.

The Finnish State International Translator's Prize is an award that I never expected to receive, and it means a great deal to me. I would like to thank everyone who recommended me for it.

Many years ago I visited Finland for the first time, as a young Edinburgh University student of Russian: it was July 1966, and I was travelling along the Baltic by ship, with some friends, on the way to the Soviet Union. Disembarking in Finland for a few all-too brief hours, my first impressions were of the city of Helsinki, but what I remember most of all were the light, stillness and calm of the late summer evening that greeted me as I walked up from the harbour. It was a calm that I hadn't experienced in any other city I'd been to, and I remember wondering where all the people were, for at that particular time of the evening there was almost no one about. I didn’t know it then, but in the years to come I would make many more visits to Finland and meet many people there, both in life and in books.

I've spent a large part of my life studying and translating, for the most part, the literature of three languages: Russian, Swedish and Finnish (I’ve translated poetry and fiction from other Northern languages, including Danish, Norwegian and Icelandic, but the three languages I mention are the ones that have held the most significance for me). The choice may at first sight seem strange, yet if one looks at the map it does makes sense, as Russia, Sweden and Finland are close neighbours, and have a common, if not always harmonious, history – and that is the context in which I discovered them.

Although the three languages – Russian, Swedish and Finnish – are structurally and lexically quite different from one another, my university study of Russian and Russian literature (which I pursued to doctorate level) was accompanied by a study of German. This led me to learn the Nordic languages, including Icelandic at the University of Iceland in Reykjavik, and then some years later, with the encouragement of the Finnish Literature Information Centre – which is now called FILI – Finnish, first under Hannele Branch at London’s School of Slavonic and East European Studies, and later at the University of Helsinki.

In the late nineteenth century and during the early twentieth century it was not uncommon for educated people in North-Eastern Europe to speak, read and understand all three of my chosen languages, although nowadays the unlikeness of Russian, Swedish and Finnish is thought to make them mutually exclusive. That was not the case in the past, and the change of attitude may be due at least in part to political and socio-historical factors.

I put the emphasis here on “languages” rather than “countries”, for in my experience literature only rarely coincides with frontiers on maps: it exists not behind national boundaries but in language, and in a psychic and emotional space that is governed by the laws of reading and common fellowship. The novels of Dostoyevsky and the poetry of Baratynsky and Blok may tell us something unique about the Russian soul, but they also speak in universal terms. Likewise, the verses of the Kalevala and the plays of Strindberg tell us much about the psyche of Northern Europe, but they also draw inner maps of human consciousness, and of the unconscious. And indeed, in my years of work as a literary translator I have become aware that in literary terms the three linguistic cultures I mentioned tend to overlap with one another. The work of Edith Södergran, the first of the poets of Finland whom I endeavoured to translate, is one of the living confirmations of that.

My first translations of Finland's literature were nearly all of Swedish-language poets and authors, of whom there are almost more than in Sweden itself. Then I began to study Finnish, first at London's School of Slavonic and East European Studies, and later at the University of Helsinki. Through my own reading and my many years of contact with members of the Finnish Literature Centre and the editors of Books from Finland magazine, I developed a knowledge of both Finland-Swedish and Finnish literature. This was further helped by meetings and friendships with contemporary authors – especially the poets Gösta Ågren, Bo Carpelan and Tua Forsström, with whom I worked on translations of their poetry, learning an enormous amount in the process – and with their editors and publishers in Finland. My British publishers Penguin and Bloodaxe also gave me encouragement in my work as a literary translator.

In recent years I have been reading the Finnish poetry of the early twentieth century, and am surprised to learn how few of the poets who lived in that period are translated into English. So that is one of my projects both for the present and for the future: to try to make the voices of Saima Harmaja, Kaarlo Sarkia, Katri Vala, Uuno Kailas and other poets from that long-ago time heard in English, for they still have many things to tell us.

Again, I would like to say thank you for this award, which I’m honoured to receive: for me it’s a landmark in my continuing discovery of Finland, its people, and its extraordinarily rich and diverse literature.

Translator's Prize

News from Helsinki that I've been awarded the Finnish State Prize for Foreign Translators.

It's a great honour.

Don't Be Afraid of Life

by Kaarlo Sarkia

Don’t be afraid of life,
Don’t shut out its beauty.
Invite it to sit by your fire,
or should your hearth expire,
to meet it outside is your duty.
Don’t turn your back on its strife.
Don’t go away to the graveyard to hide
for death’s door will stay opened wide
.
Like a bird you should fly,
not dwelling on past life’s ruins.
Turn your attention to now,
Let what has been take a bow.
Let them lie in the grave, your doings,
then face the future, and try.
Be free as the wind, unfettered, unbroken,
the gate of death is always open.

Do not ever say:
this is mine alone.
Drink from life’s cup
and once again give its pain up.
If you never beg to own,
the world's riches are yours today.
Be bold, stake all on one card:
ahead you will always see death’s gate unbarred.

ÄLÄ ELÄMÄÄ PELKÄÄ

Älä elämää pelkää
älä sen kauneutta kiellä
suo sen tupaasi tulla
tai jos liettä ei sulla,
sitä vastaan käy tiellä,
älä käännä sille selkää.
Älä haudoille elämää lymyyn kulje;
ei kuolema sinulta oveaan sulje.

Kuin lintu lennä
älä viipyen menneen raunioilla
nykyhetkeä häädä
suo jääneen jäädä
suo olleen haudassa olla
tulevaa koe vastaan mennä.
Ole vapaa, kahleeton tuulen tavoin
on kuoleman portti aina avoin.

Älä koskaan sano:
tämä on iäti minun
elon maljasta juovu,
taas siitä kivutta luovu
on maailman rikkaus sinun
kun mitään omakses et ano.
Elä pelotta varassa yhden kortin
näet aina avoinna kuoleman portin.

The One who Fled

by Kaarlo Sarkia

Did I love you?
That I do not know.
In my soul I trembled
when you turned to go.

I know that you left it
with reason to flee.
No way to deny it,
necessity.

From my soul was lifted
the innermost veil.
You could not bear it,
butterfly, you set sail,

fled from the gloomy
enigma in fright:
in front of you opened
a pitch-black night,

deeper than leagues, you saw the dark pit,
 - and then you fled
the cruel sight of it.

Did I love you?
That I do not know -
In my soul I trembled
when you turned to go.

PAENNUT

Rakastinko sinua?

Tiedä en tuota.

Värisin, kun lähdit

sieluni luota.

Tiedän: kun lähdit,

et lähtenyt syyttä.

Kieltää on mahdoton

välttämättömyyttä.

Väistyi sieluni

sisimmäisin verho.

Nähdä et kestänyt,

pakenit, perho,

säikähdit synkkää

arvoitusta:

eteesi aukeni

yö sysimusta,

pimeän kuilun näit, peninkulmaa

syvemmän – pakenit

näkyä julmaa.

Rakastinko sinua?

tiedä en tuota -

värisin, kun lähdit

sieluni luota.

In the Mirror

by Kaarlo Sarkia

Strange and truly wondrous
in the mirror you look at me.
All I really know is
that you I cannot be.

With my eyes you survey me,
with my lips you smile, too,
what I see in the mirror
is not me, but you, just you.

Whoever you are – astral morning,
eternal night – in the frame
like a wraith, a ghostly phantom,
invisible I remain.

KUVASTIMESTA

Kuvastimesta minua vastaan

sinä katselet, ihmeellinen. 

Minä ymmärrän ainoastaan:

Minä en ole siinä, en. 

Sinä katselet silmilläni,

sinä hymyät suullani mun.

En peilistä itseäni

mina nää, näen sun, vain sun. 

Kuka liet – ylimaallinen aamu,

iankaikkinen yö – sinut nään

kuvastimesta, niinkuin haamu

näkymättömäks itse ma jään. 

Chiaroscuro

by Kaarlo Sarkia

I heard the words my dreams spoke with their soul:
Who views his life with hatred, mad is he,
like one who whips and tears at his own flesh.
Life is a soil, from it your dreams break free,
and  beauty grows from under weights of pain,
and when you rise to throw off matter’s reign
your dreams, too, meet their end within that mesh,
and darkness floods in all, devours it whole.

You must  must love your life,
For that is why your father fathered you,
and that is why, through all the shame and strife,
your mother carried you and brought you through,
was grateful to her life because of yours
which she could place outside the open doors.. .

My life, I want to praise and thank you now:
Thank you for bearing me from emptiness,
a member of the beauteous human race,
for giving them to me, these human eyes
that many generations made
for seeing beauty under vaulted skies,
thank you for filling them with dreams that flow
until the number of my days
shall bring you to an end, my life,
and I am harvest for the reaper’s scythe.

Power of life, I want to love you still,
because I wandered long in mazes, made    
to feel despair and fear without a  will,        
because you early took and caused to fade
what was for me the finest of your gifts,
love you because you took my strength to kill
and let it lie in chains that weakness laid,
because your wine could also change and be
the vinegar of pain and death for me,
because when I will long for shadows tall
and give you back your gifts, and dying fall,
then it will turn, my soul, and take from you
another day, another morning, new.

VALOHÄMYÄ

Puhui mulle unieni sielu: 
Mieletön, ken elâmäänsä vihaa,
niinkuin mies, ken ruoskii omaa lihaa,
Elämä on unelmies multa, 
kaunis kasvaa alta tuskan paineen,
ja kun pääset vankilasta aineen,
loppuu myöskin unelmasi sulta,
kaiken ahmaa pimeyden nielu.

Rakastaa sun tulee elämätä, 
sitä varten sinut isäs siitti,
sitä varten sinut äitis kantoi,
vaikka painoi häpeä ja hätä,
sentään elämäänsä siitä kiitti,
että sulle elämän hän antoi. 

Tahdon, elämääni, sua kiittää:
Kiitos, että tyhjästä mun kannoit 
jäseneksi kauniin ihmissuvun, 
että ihmissilmät mulle annoit
valmistuneet monoin sukupolvin 
kauneuteen alla taivaan holvin,
kiitos, että unta niille riittáä,
siksi kunnes alta ilmain kuvun
täyttyessä päivieni luvun 
korjuumiehen viikate mun niittää. 

Rakastaa sua tahdon, mahti elon,
siksi että sokkeloissa harhain
epätoivon tuta sain ja pelon,
että kädestäni riistit varhain 
mikä mielestäni lahjas parhain,
rakastaa siks että mulle voiman
annoit heikkouden kammitsoiman,
että viinissäsi toinen puol’on
etikkata kivun sekä kuolon,
että kuitenkin, kun kaipaan varjoon
kuoleman ja lahjas sulle tarjoon
takaisin, sen jälleen sulta saa mun
sielinu, ain’ annat uuden aamun. 

Airmail

I've now finished Airmail: the Letters of Robert Bly and Tomas Tranströmer (Bloodaxe, 2013, 476pp), and found it an absorbing if rather lengthy read. The letters are a mixture of the personal and the literary, and while it's interesting to follow the careers and private lives of two men, most of the really attention-grabbing passages occur in connection with the problems of literary translation. This was a two-way process, for each poet translated work by the other: the result is a kind of poetic table-tennis match, with poems constantly in transit between English and Swedish, and the inevitable occasional misreadings and misunderstandings flowing out into bursts of creative energy which save the texts as poems in the "other" language. Some of the interchanges read like almost like language lessons, but the tension thus caused is nearly always defused by humour and wit. Although a few of the finished poems are reproduced in the volume, it would have been nice to have more of the completed translations to compare with the collaborative editing process that's revealed in the letters. Though this would have added to the length of the volume, the inclusion of more actual poems might have been preferable to the often less interesting career-related letters (with details of tours, readings, etc.) that occupy many of the pages.

Putin oligarchs buy Hartwall Arena

Via Bloomberg:

Gennady Timchenko and two other billionaire acquaintances of President Vladimir Putin bought a stake in Jokerit ice hockey team, moving the club from Finland’s top league to Russia’s answer to the NHL.

Timchenko, Arkady Rotenberg and Boris Rotenberg will also buy Hartwall Areena in Helsinki, Jokerit’s home rink and Finland’s largest event venue, with a seating capacity of about 13,500, according to an e-mailed statement from the business partners’ Arena Events Oy venture. The price wasn’t disclosed.

Pussy Riot in Finland

Via Yle: 

Two members of the Russian political performance group Pussy Riot are in Helsinki for this weekend's World Village Festival.

The women are in Finland to talk about the status of political prisoners in Russia and to plug their new book on human rights. It’s a manifesto entitled A Punk Prayer for Freedom of Speech.

They are to appear onstage at the free festival in Kaisaniemi Park at 11am Saturday with the popular Finnish female duo PMMP, who recently said they will end their career this year.

http://yle.fi/uutiset/pussy_riot_members_to_appear_at_helsinki_multicultural_fest/6658092

Update:

Weekend performances in Helsinki by two members of the Russian political performance group Riot Pussy, as well as scheduled interviews, have been cancelled. Concerns for their safety seem to have led to the cancellations.

http://yle.fi/uutiset/pussy_riot_members_cancel_appearances_whereabouts_unknown/6658931

Update: According to Yekaterina Samutsevich, interviewed by Hbl  in Moscow, a performance by the two Pussy Riot members at  the Maailma kylässä festival in Helsinki was never planned, as Pussy Riot does not perform outside Russia, and doesn't announce its performances in advance:

– Det stämmer att två av våra medlemmar har åkt till Finland. De skulle träffa stödtrupper och delta i utgivningen av en bok. Men det var aldrig meningen att de skulle stå på scen. Det måste vara ett missförstånd, säger Jekaterina Samtusevitj i en Hbl-intervju i Moskva.

Hon är mycket förvånad över att de finländska arrangörerna över huvud taget har tänkt sig att de båda Pussy Riot-medlemmarna skulle delta i ett evenemang som offentliggörs i förväg.

– Pussy Riot fungerar enligt helt andra regler. Vi meddelar aldrig i förväg var vi är och vad vi gör. Dessutom står vi enbart på scen i Ryssland för det är det här landet vi vill påverka och förändra. Jag förstår inte alls hur det här missförståndet kunde ha uppstått, säger Samutsevitj.

http://hbl.fi/nyheter/2013-05-25/454376/pussy-riot-upptrader-inte-utomlands

Karin Boye ebook

Just a reminder that my translations of Karin Boye's poetry (Complete Poems) are now available as a Kindle ebook, here (UK) and here (US).

Norway International

The current edition of Poetry International's website has work by Norwegian poets Monica Aasprong, Torgeir Rebolledo Pedersen (some of his poems are also in my translations) and Tone Hødnebø on its front page. The Norwegian PIW site, where all the material should be accessible after this week, is here.

No Man's Land

by Pia Tafdrup

My grey cat vanishes,

or has it acquired a new life

   at Nivå Brickworks?

At night I hear it calling…

Search for it, search again the next day.

Live in a vacuum, while my father

looks for another farm,

but learn in sun and dust to cycle,

shoot myself forward like a mainspring,

   ever further out

on Vibevej, along the residential gardens.

Lilacs, laburnums,

an olfactory orgy to sweep past.

Shall I vanish like the cat,

for there is no one to play with,

   and over the summer

I lose

    tooth after tooth in my hollowed hand.

When my mother takes an afternoon nap

with no hands on the clock 

the first one falls out,

   white,

but leaving

      a bloody hole

the tongue’s tip wants to drill down into

– instead of calling, speaking.

Taste of iron in the mouth. Blood words.

Cave language. Tongue pit.

A tooth

   white

as a daisy growing in the grass

in the garden of the house we rent

   and under whose roof my mother in the rain

now and then sings

                      "Solitude Road".

In the house with creaky stairs

and smells of strangers

   there is a studio

we may not enter, my sister and I,

   there I seek refuge –

sit for hours on the floor, contemplate

the radiant pictures’

                  vanishing grey.

translated from Danish by David McDuff

Ecbatana

The poem plays a central role in Sophus Claussen’s novel Valfart (Pilgrimage, 1896). Valfart is written as a travel memoir in the tradition of Goethe’s Italian Journey, though in Claussen’s book the narrative lends itself to the creation of a fictional world, a fantasy that is only tangentially linked to the real locations in Italy and France which the novel’s central character, the bridge-building engineer Silvio, visits. Silvio has been commissioned by a wealthy German lady to write “a treatise that was to be called Some of Italy's Oldest Bridges (Nogle af de ældste Broer i Italien)." In a sense, the novel is the treatise, in which the bridges eventually become allegorical, representing love-relationships rather than constructions of stone. The “pilgrimage” of the title is a journey to the sanctuary of the Montallegro Madonna near Rapallo, a section that forms the high point of the novel’s second part.

On the way to Italy Silvio visits Paris, where he falls in love with Célimène and has a Platonic love affair with her. The affair eventually becomes complicated by Silvio’s desire for a physical relationship, but before this happens, he attends a New Year’s celebration at which he has a hallucinatory vision of a more ancient civilization – the Persian city of Ecbatana:

Han vidste ikke helt nøjagtigt, paa hvilken Klode eller I hvilken Tid, han selv befandt sig, om han virkelig var i Paris ved et Nytaarsselskab, eller om han var med ved et nu længst forglemt Gæstebud I Ekbátana.

He was not quite sure on which planet or in which era he found himself, whether he was in Paris at a New Year’s gathering or whether he was taking part in a now long-forgotten feast in Ecbatana.

The Ecbatana poem is a curious assembly of visual and visionary, dreamlike elements, bound together in a four-footed metre. There is, however, a problem in the last line of each stanza, all of which end with the word "Ekbátana". As the Danish scholar Vilhelm Andersen once pointed out, where the metre calls for the dactylic Ek-bá-a-ta-na, there is what he calls an “iambic dipody”, or double iamb. This has the effect of creating a slight emphasis on the "Ek-" of Ekbátana, producing a delay which means that the final syllable of the line carries a lighter stress than would normally be the case, and causes a sense of floating uncertainty, where "in a single word finite meets infinite, and materiality meets transcendence".  (For this perception I'm indebted to Dan Ringgaard's study of Claussen's poetic universe in his book Den poetiske lækage).

There are other technical problems in the poem – for example, the name ”Ekbátana” is a poor rhyme-word in Danish, and Claussen has to resort to pairing it with insignificant words like “da” and “fra”. Yet the richness of the imagery is such that this doesn’t really interfere with the reader’s appreciation of the poem as a whole.

In my English version - which I'm still working on - I have tried to maintain the metre and rhyme, though this may have led to some distortions of meaning. The Danish text follows, and after it my translation.

EKBÁTANA

Jeg husker den Vaar, da mit Hjærte i Kim
undfangede Drømmen og søgte et Rim,
hvis Glans skulde synke, jeg ved ej hvorfra,
som naar Solen gik ned i Ekbátana.

En Spotter gav mig med Lærdom at ane,
at Vægten paa Ordet var Ekbatáne.
Den traurige Tosse, han ved ej da,
at Hjærtet det elsker Ekbátana.

Byen med tusind henslængte Terrasser,
Løngange, svimlende Mure - som passer
der bagerst i Persien, hvor Rosen er fra,
begravet i Minder - Ekbátana!

Hin fjærne Vaar, da min Sjæl laa i Kim
og drømte umulige Roser og Rim,
er svunden, skjønt Luften var lys ogsaa da,
som den Sol, der forsvandt bag Ekbátana.

Men Drømmen har rejst sig en Vaar i Paris,
da Verden var dyb og assyrisk og vis,
som blødte den yppigste Oldtid endda ...
Jeg har levet en Dag i Ekbátana.

Min Sjæl har flydt som en Syrings af Toner,
til Solfaldet farvede Parkernes Kroner
og Hjærtet sov ind i sin Højhed - som fra
en Solnedgang over Ekbátana.

Men Folkets Sæder? den stoltes Bedrift?
hvad nyt og sælsomt skal levnes derfra?
En Rædsel, et Vanvid i Kileskrift
paa dit Dronningelegem - Ekbátana.

Men Rosen, det dyreste, verden har drømt,
al Livets Vellyst - hvad var den da?
Et Tegn kun, en Blomst, som blev givet paa Skrømt
ved en kongelig Fest i Ekbátana.

Da blev jeg taalmodig og stolt. Jeg har drømt
en dybere Lykke, end nogen har tømt.
Lad Syndflodens Vande mig bære herfra
- jeg har levet en dag i Ekbátana.


ECBÁTANA

I remember that spring, when my heart in its time
conceived the dream and searched for a rhyme,
whose glory should sink, I know not from where,
as when the sun set in Ecbátana.

A mocker advised me, with scholarly drama,
that the stress on the word was “Ecbatána”,
The sad, silly fool, he wasn’t aware
that the heart is in love with Ecbátana.

The city with terraces thousandfold sprawling,
with passages secret, walls dizzy falling
in Persia down there where the roses are,
buried in memories – Ecbátana!

That far-off spring, when my heart in its time
dreamed of impossible roses and rhyme,
has died, though the air was also light there,
like the sun that died behind Ecbátana.

But in Paris one spring the dream came to rise,
and the world became deep and Assyrian and wise,
as if still antiquity bled as of yore…
I lived for a day in Ecbátana.

My soul floated on like a syrinx of sounds
till the sun’s fall colored the parks' tree-crowns,
and the heart fell asleep in its highness, as there
in a sunset over Ecbátana.

But the people’s customs? The proud man’s feat?
What new and strange things would be left to share?
A terror, a madness, a cuneiform script
On your queenly body – Ecbátana.

But the rose, the most precious that world’s dreams know,
all life’s voluptuousness – who knew what they were?
Just a sign, a flower that was given for show
at a royal feast in Ecbátana.

I grew patient and proud. And then in my sleep
I dreamt of a fortune unemptied and deep.
Let the Flood’s waters carry me hence, afar
– I lived for a day in Ecbátana.

Sophus Claussen in English

The apparent absence of a standard English translation of the work of the great Danish Symbolist poet Sophus Claussen (1865-1931) has always struck me as puzzling. Whether it's because Claussen is still  associated in some Anglo-American literary minds with the European "periphery", or whether it relates to the difficulty of rendering his polished and elegant metrical verse into English rhyme, or whether the obscurity of some of his work has confounded the translators, his poetry has remained to a large extent unknown outside the Nordic region. It has also meant that Claussen's novels, which include Unge Bander (1894), Antonius i Paris (1896) and Valfart (1896), are not yet known to an English-language readership.

During the past few months I've been trying out some English versions of poems by Claussen in the environment of an online translation workshop, where the general atmosphere, though inevitably somewhat foggy, is none the less enlivening. The response among specialists and non-specialists alike has been interesting. Although some participants have dismissed the poems as "glib" and "flowery", others have confirmed by the general drift of their comments that in many respects Claussen's work differs little in form, style and character from that of many other Symbolist poets of his time, although they wrote in French, German or Russian, not Danish. Certainly, Claussen was entirely at home in the world of Parisian literary bohemianism, and was even photographed together with Verlaine and other Parnassian and Symbolist poets. The French translations of his work by the poet Charles Cros, though long out of print, also put him firmly into the context of the French literature from which he derived so much of the technical basis of his inspiration.

In her fascinating and amazingly detailed study of Nordic Orientalism, the Scandinavianist and literary scholar Elisabeth Oxfeldt has examined the  roots and genesis of Claussen's celebrated poem 'Ekbátana', which she sees as a central text in the historic emergence of Denmark from the cultural periphery of Europe towards its centre. She writes that "the poem expresses a longing towards Parisian modernity and cosmopolitanism as well as a built-in resistance towards a Western monoculture whose tendency it is to obliterate peripheral cultures."

In future posts I'll present the Danish text of  'Ekbátana' together with the latest version of my translation, and discuss the poem further.

Out in the Field

A small group of Finnish-English translators who hail from both sides of the Atlantic has recently set itself up as a literary "translation cooperative" - FELT.  At present the aims of the new body are somewhat unclear: apparently it's not an association along the lines of SELTA, the long-established association of Swedish-English literary translators, but rather "a community where translators can exchange news, ideas, and working methods with each other and share their work with the public", to quote the official statement on the FELT website. It seems that it also exists, in the words of one member, "to unabashedly promote our own work to general readers, publishers, and agents."

So far so good, and one wishes the cooperative all the best for the future. It's still not clear, however, whether the new community is an open one which all Finnish-English translators may join - in the way that Swedish-English translators have joined SELTA over the past few decades as full or associate members - or whether it's a closed professional club with a fixed and restricted membership and a Facebook window on the wider world. It might perhaps be helpful if the organizers would make this less ambiguous, though one appreciates that the planning of the new organization may still be in the early stages.

Saima Harmaja

My translations of poems by Saima Harmaja are online at Books from Finland.

Pedro Carmona-Alvarez

My translations of poems by the Norwegian-Chilean poet Pedro Carmona-Alvarez are on the site of Poetry International Web.

Tua Forsström

Books from Finland magazine has published some of my translations of poems from Tua Forsström's new collection. There's also a short introductory essay by Michel Ekman, also in my translation.

Laus Strandby Nielsen: Two Texts

MR. SAFE

Mr. Safe has chosen his 600 kilo weight pseudonym because the elevator can just about carry him. The combination he has forgotten. Perhaps a stamp collection has been lost. He watches the news continuously. It is always new. His forgetfulness wins the race against the whole flock of repetitions. Every time. That is how he forestalls his loneliness. Once he had an anxious future. Now he is in time’s fullness of abundance. Absolutely alone. Absolutely modern. Like in the good old days. His daughter is his mother. His grandchild is also him. His time has come. It goes no further. How can he be lonely?

His real name is Hansen. More real than that it does not get. It is far from certain that it is enough. It takes at least three people to change the diaper on his 120 kilo weight body. Free will lives somewhere nearby. Like a king in his castle. It’s some old shit, but it's his old shit. There must be a meeting. There must be several meetings. There must be implementation. But from now on he represents your blind spot. His heirs are called Cause and Effect.


HR. PENGESKAB

Hr. Pengeskab har valgt sit 600 kg tunge pseudonym fordi elevatoren så lige akkurat kan bære ham. Koden har han glemt. Måske er en frimærkesamling gået tabt. Han ser nyhederne uafbrudt.  De er hele tiden nye. Hans glemsomhed vinder kapløbet mod hele flokken af gentagelser. Hver gang. Sådan kommer han ensomheden i forkøbet. Engang havde han en ængstelig fremtid.  Nu er han i tidens fylde af overflod. Absolut ikke alene. Absolut moderne. Som i de gode gamle dage. Hans datter er hans mor. Hans barnebarn er også ham. Hans tid er kommet. Den går ikke længere. Hvordan kan han være ensom?

Hans virkelige navn er Hansen. Mere virkeligt bliver det ikke. Det er langt fra sikkert at det er nok. Der skal mindst tre personer til at skifte bleen på hans 120 kg tunge krop. Den frie vilje bor et sted i nærheden. Som en konge på sit slot. Det er noget gammelt lort, men det er hans gamle lort. Der skal holdes et møde. Der skal holdes flere møder. Der skal implementeres. Men fra  nu af forestiller han din blinde plet. Hans arvinger hedder Årsag og Virkning.



THEY NEVER PUT THE LIGHT OUT IN THE CORRIDOR

Because life goes on with trolleys and racks
in the light and the dark, in spasms that clutch something
almost nothing of what remains, it spreads
out like that snoring in the universe you call
your neighbour. You must go closer. Through the fair
fluttering worlds that are what you can see
in the birdsong’s grey-flickering cuts in the grief.
The wet and the dry monsters wag their tails.
If they’ve been allowed to keep them. There’s
a big circle when the animals say goodbye.
While the  pretty, capable ambassadors of the future
submit their credentials to my white
blood cells. There’s a burning in one foot.
There’s an emergency vehicle on its way in the oesophagus
in a southbound direction, I repeat: Dr. Carrot
and Dr. Stick are in a meeting, this is the last call
for passengers to The Old World. All
others are asked to stand up and say thank you for the ride.


DE SLUKKER ALDRIG LYSET UDE PÅ GANGEN 

Fordi livet går videre med rulleborde og stativer
i lyset og mørket, i kramper der knuger noget
nær ingenting ud af det der er tilbage, det breder
sig ud som den snorken i universet du kalder
din næste. Du skal tættere på. Gennem de fagre
blafrende verdener der er hvad du kan se 
i fuglesangens gråflimrende rifter i sorgen.
De våde og de tørre monstre logrer med halen.
Hvis de har fået lov til at beholde den.  Der er
en stor rundkreds når dyrene siger farvel.
Mens fremtidens smukke, dygtige ambassadører
afleverer deres akkreditiver til mine hvide
blodlegemer. Det brænder i den ene fod.
Der er et udrykningskøretøj på vej i spiserøret
i sydgående retning, jeg gentager: Dr. Gulerod
og Dr. Stok sidder i møde, det er sidste udkald
for passagerer til Den gamle verden. Alle
andre bedes rejse sig og sige tak for turen.

translated from Danish by David McDuff

Michael Strunge and F.P. Jac

YouTube now has quite an extensive collection of videos of readings and interviews featuring 1980s Danish poets.  In this sequence Michael Strunge is joined by F.P. Jac.

Pia Tafdrup: Salamandersol

In a documentary broadcast on Gyldendal's television channel, Pia Tafdrup talks about her new collection Salamandersol. Among other things, the film contains some video clips that feature Michael Strunge.


 

Laus Strandby Nielsen: Two Texts

THE TITLE GEYSIR

Seen from a distance in backlight it looks like a slightly informal funeral.
But the yellow, red, blue, purple, black, incidentally not green
windcheaters and raincoats and not least the cameras tell
a different story about the incidentally 19 texts without a heading
that stand around a mud hole. Which one must not touch.
19 different open texts, cryptically unfinished, muttering
with a planet in their mouths and the sky for a handkerchief.
Can they read one another? No. Can they read themselves? No.
They are waiting for the title, and so they cannot get down
to the text. And then it is there. A fountain of boiling water
shoots high in the air. The cameras click. An expected
surprise, called Geysir, makes the texts meaningless
and briefly closed...


OVERSKRIFTEN GEYSIR

Set på afstand i modlys ligner det en lidt uformel begravelse.
Men de gule, røde, blå, lilla, sorte, tilfældigvis ingen grønne
vind- og regnjakker og ikke mindst kameraerne fortæller 
noget andet om de tilfældigvis 19 tekster uden overskrift
der står rundt om et mudderhul. Som man ikke skal røre ved.
19 forskellige åbne tekster, kryptisk uafsluttede, mumlende
med en planet i munden og himlen som lommetørklæde.
Kan de læse hinanden? Nej. Kan de læse sig selv? Nej.
De venter på overskriften, og så kan de jo ikke komme ned
i teksten. Og så er den der. En fontæne af kogende vand
skyder højt op i luften. Kameraerne klikker. En forventet
overraskelse, kaldet Geysir, gør teksterne meningsløse
og kortvarigt afsluttede…


AVANTGARDE

The stiffest clothes are not as stiff as they were. So now a plaster cast is needed. But I anticipate the course of events. As always when one lags behind. The whole class came and wrote their names on the plaster leg. This temporary monument, assailed by doubtful presence. Who will come now with the family album of X-rays? The loft must be cleared. The house must be vacuumed and fumigated. And yet the new tenants will complain because they are bitten by the old fleas. They are not all there. They are obsessed with the thought of fleas. They scratch themselves where the skin bubbles up around a bite. Material sense never fails.


AVANTGARDE

Det stiveste puds er ikke så stift som det har været. Så nu skal der gipses. Men jeg foregriber begivenhedernes gang. Som altid når man er bagud. Hele klassen kom og skrev deres navne på gipsbenet. Dette midlertidige monument, bestormet af tvivlsomt nærvær. Hvem kommer nu med familiealbummet af røntgenbilleder? Loftet skal ryddes. Huset skal støvsuges og gasses. Og alligevel vil de nye lejere klage fordi de bliver bidt af de gamle lopper. De er ikke rigtig kloge. De er besat af tanken om lopper. De kradser sig hvor huden bobler op omkring et bid. Materialefornemmelsen fornægter sig aldrig.


translated from Danish by David McDuff

Salamander Sun

Salamandersol, Pia Tafdrup's latest collection of poetry, contains one poem for each year of the poet's life. Here's a translation of the first poem.

JOY

First is joy,

  smuggled across the border

      through a narrow tunnel.

The night is over, drowned in the sea

  buried in the ground,

      thousands of years passed alone.

Smells that already existed,

  closely surround,

       horses snort in the barn.

Wake with light,

  see shadow-play on the wallpaper

       hear birds in bushes and ivy.

The  grown-ups’ voices and laughter,

  a safe landing place

       on the other side of the wall.

First is the morning garden

  in sun,

       its illumination of the heart.

Apples fall in the warm grass,

  insects rise

       up from flowers’ petal depth.

First is openness,

  that soon closes,

       faceless.

First is trust,

  that is easily swallowed

       by galactic fear.

First is  joy,

  that newborn flows

       towards the world, dreams it.

Then follows grief, then follows anger,

  then someone says:

    –  Peace be with it.

Life is death that is coming,

  but first is joy.

translated from Danish by David McDuff

The Beggar and the Hare

Tuomas Kyrö's novel Kerjäläinen ja jänis (The Beggar and the Hare, 2011) is at once a homage to the better-known book by Arto Paasilinna, Jäniksen vuosi (The Year of the Hare, 1977), and an affectionate pastiche of it. Kyrö takes the theme of "man and animal" and turns it into a satire on the life of modern Finland, with its uncertain position between an affluent and introspective Scandinavia and an impoverished but outward-bound Eastern Europe. The novel's great virtue lies in its author's ability to go further and convert this local drama into a human comedy, where elements of social and political strife become part of a universal moral tale.

Here's an excerpt from the early part of the book, in my translation:

From Kerjäläinen ja jänis [The Beggar and the Hare] by Tuomas Kyrö

[pp. 29-33]

Yegor Kugar was a professional in the security sector whose career began in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Later on the artificial Union filed for bankruptcy, but that change of affairs had no effect on Yegor Kugar’s life and deeds – at least not of a negative kind. Regimes may fall, but the security police remains. The security police is the regime. From Kugar’s professional point of view the nosedive of the Bolshies was actually a positive event, one that improved the state of the markets. Unstable domestic politics and power vacuums always mean brilliant new opportunities for those with no shortage of nerve and testosterone. 

“I brought the poppy flowers of the mullahs to the nouveau-riches of my own land. A briefcase full of opium, several briefcases full of banknotes. Our kind of agricultural subsidy. That way the level of my income rather swiftly reached that of my clients. I bought a Nokia mobile phone the size of a beer-crate but couldn’t use it to call anyone, as there weren’t any network towers in our neck of the woods yet.”

   At first Yegor sold sackfuls of poppies, then opium, but having been brought up on the street he soon realized that the longer a small businessman works up his raw stock the fatter his wallet will be. With his takings Yegor Kugar bought what every newly-rich motherfucker throughout the world buys: an outsize four-by-four. It might also suit the tramcar-riding intelligentsia to find out what it feels like to go rolling along in one’s very own bulletproof, family-car-eating Hummer.

   Yegor needed a temporary residence for vacations, so he bought a floor of the former Party members’ apartment block. When the heroes of the Great Patriotic War on the floor above complained about the noise, Yegor bought that floor as well and moved the heroes out to the street. In his new home Yegor Kugar celebrated his own ego, the good sides of his time at the summit of world history in the company of presidents, sports stars and the bearded, pointy hat-wearing radicals of the Orthodox Church. An endless shindig, like the one in Yegor’s favourite book The Dirt, which describes the everyday life – or rave-up – of the band Mötley Crüe. For in Yegor’s eyes two beings were superior to all others: Vince Neil and Joseph Stalin. Yegor himself puts it like this:

“I’ll tell you straight, as it’s important if you want to understand my character and don’t just want to stick me in the slammer. I’m mad about fucking. It’s the only way I know to get the shit out of my head when I’m under this goddamn stress all the time. Fucking is better than fighting, no? At first I never did drugs myself because I knew it would immediately bugger the stock records and the sales chain follow-up.

   “What’s the alternative? Drinking puts you out of action for several days. It’s better to empty your head with fucking.

    “Two weeks of business, two weeks in my pad with Miss Uzbekistan. There are all kinds of broads in the world, of all races, sizes, smells and tastes. There are the Pam Andersons and the Armi Aavikkos, but there are also the junkies, the halfwits and the Alla Pugachovas. There are the semi-uglies who are also hypersexual marvels in an easy-going sort of way. There are the seventeen year-olds who look like women of thirty and there are the forty-seven year-olds who’ve kept their resale value. There are the rump roasts who are bigger and lovelier than the sum of their holes. And there the ones who are just holes, for whom I was equivalent to money, drugs and connections, in other words a hole through which they could sniff coke with NHL hockey players. But fun was always had on both sides, until it got embarrassing, at which point I’d tell the girls to go, and order new ones. It didn’t seem possible that such a life would ever end.

   “I just can’t sleep alone, I need someone beside me, it doesn’t matter who it is as long as she has a good body. That’s how it is with the women back home, but over here the ladies have been let into the labour market, they have too many opportunities to let their bodies go and quit wearing makeup.”

Yegor Kugar wanted more serious challenges in his life, and so he expanded his business activities from drugs to arms. A market was offered to him on a plate: hostile armies. The most important thing was that the conflicts were ongoing, that no peace negotiations were started, that the situation did not become normalized. As long as the hostile army was within binocular range and antagonistic, one could trade drugs for arms.

“Shitistan, Blackanistan and blah-blah-blah. I got my supply of happy dust from the tribal warlords, paid cash in Kalashnikovs. Then, just for form’s sake, a little skirmish with the same crew, and at the same time an application to HQ for leave, which was granted of course as I slipped in some powder as a sweetener.

    “The problems began when the enemy side began to tighten up their morale. Worst of all were the separatists, read B-league fundamentalists, read clerics. They’re an obstacle to free trade, a bit like your social democracy here. They scared the pants off me, because they weren’t scared of us at all. Kind of like the Finns during the Winter War: let the Russkies bring their millions of tanks, we’ll mow them down with our bows and catapults. In place of fear and flight they had hate and faith. Extremely dangerous. I respected them and despised them. But goddammit, if they’d gained such unlimited power, why on earth did they go on living in caves and ruins? They made threatening videos, took hostages and muttered their holy scripture, though they’d have done  better to make music videos and build swimming pools in their basements with pole dancing, billiard tables and drink cupboards.

    “I realized that they didn’t know much about fucking, either. That they could only get it up when they were able to rape someone. Their male cousins.”