Airmail Read Online Free PDF Page A

Couple
    They snap the light off, and its white globe glows
    an instant and then dissolves, like a tablet
    in a glass of darkness. Now a rising.
    The hotel walls shoot up into the heavenly darkness.
    Their love movements grow softer, and they sleep,
    but their most secret thoughts go on meeting
    like two colors that meet and run together
    on the white paper in a schoolboy’s watercolor.
    It is dark and silent. The city however has come nearer
    in the night. With its closed off windows. Houses arrive.
    They stand in crowded expectation considerably nearer,
    a mob of people with expressionless faces.
    All good wishes—
      Robert Bly
    Roxtuna 27-5-64
    Dear Robert Bly,
    good to hear that you approve my translations! Still better that you are to visit Norway-Sweden fairly soon. Thinking about your visit, I was suddenly filled with enthusiasm. We have a large house by Swedish standards (5 rooms, bungalow) and you are welcome to stay with us. The summer will be difficult—we are expecting a baby in July and have one child already, my wife has been ill and we will have to hire some sort of help during the first months—but by September things ought to be normal again and a guest room should then be available. We are in the country here, though the situation is somewhat special—in point of fact, it’s a prison. I work as a psychologist in a facility for disturbed criminal youth, and the bungalow comes with the position. Don’t be alarmed/ frightened! Visitors generally think it an idyllic setting. It is located right outside Linköping, 22 Swedish miles south of Stockholm, near the main road between Malmö and Stockholm. A convenient place to spend the night when driving from Stockholm to Malmö or vice versa. Or you can take the train and get off at Linköping, and I can pick you up at the station. So you’ll be able to recognize me, I will be wearing a green tail-coat, a false beard, and a straw hat, and reading Nixon’s autobiography. Or perhaps some simpler arrangement could be found.
    [Editor’s note: The rest of this letter is missing.]
    25 Aug, 64
    Dear Tomas Tranströmer,
    I would like some advice from you. I have been thinking of doing a little book for the Sixties Press called “Twenty Swedish Poems.” This is roughly my plan so far:
    Pär Lagerkvist—“In i mitt hjärtas blodiga hamn”
    Karin Boye—Stenarna (Gud hade givit oss tunga själar av sten)
    Harry Martinson:—Havsvinden
       Cotton
       perhaps one more
    Gunnar Ekelöf—Tionfo della Morte (Tre riddare stego ut)
       Monolog med dess hustru
       (Tag två extra gamla, etc.)
       Etudes (I) (Natt och stiltje)
       Etudes (III) (En varld ar varje manniska)
       Svanen (I) (Jag hörde vildgässs over sujkhuset)
       perhaps also an early one such as “blommorna sover”
    Artur Lundkvist—from Freud
    Eric Lindegren—Mannen Uten Vag #XXIX (I have doubts on this:
          I dislike Lindegren)
    Karl Vennberg—We have all done our best
    Werner Aspenström—På kyrkogården
       one more
    Tomas Tranströmer—Paret
       one more
    Now I would like to have you just comment on this list. Where are the holes? Have I left out anyone extremely important or good? Do you think Lindegren should be included at all? Do you have any suggestions for the third Martinson poem I might include, or the second Aspenstrom? How about the younger ones? Is Eddegren good? I have never read a poem of his, but I hear him mentioned often. I’m most interested to see what you’ll say about this plan!
    Thank you very much for your last good letter, and forgive my long delay in answering it! Somehow I thought I had already answered it, and was astonished to see it still about. I’m bad on answering anyway. I finally wrote a little poem on it.
Unanswered Letters
    Strips of August sun come in through shutters.
    Baskets of unanswered letters lie on chairs.
    Some foolish man must live here.
    [------]
    Has your new daughter come yet?!! Or son! We have two