Airmail (15 page)

for Tomas

25 June, ’69

Dear Tomas,

I was looking over with pleasure again the book you—
mainly
—put together:
Krig og tystnad
! It’s interesting to see these poems all jumbled together, and the translations—I noticed one of the wise men picked out your voice particularly—are wonderful.

I did find one sentence in the introduction which may be a misunderstanding: “Det som gör det nödvändigt—för en amerikansk poet—att skriva politisk poesi är uppmärksomheten inat.” As I understand that, it suggests that if an American poet looks inward, he will naturally, even
necessarily,
write political poems. I meant that what an American poet must possess
before
he can write (good) political poetry is inwardness. “What is necessary—for an American poet—to write political poetry is inwardness.” What the poet needs to get down to those “levels” far below the ego is the diving apparatus called “inwardness.” My sentence omitted the phrase “to have.”

Lovely night here—windy! Yours, Robert

Here’s a poem from this winter I found in my notebook:

Västerås 7-30-[1969?]

Dear Robert,

thanks for the letters, poems, clippings and
Issa
(which I’ll send to a select group of friends). It was so good to hear from you—I was seriously worried that something terrible had happened: that you were in the hospital (after a car/plane crash), that the family was ruined, that you were in jail or that the post office in Västerås had stolen all the letters from America in hopes that there were dollars in them. I also had a psychological (paranoid) explanation for why you never wrote: namely that after 200 unsuccessful attempts to place my poems in American little magazines (with one success: in Albuquerque!) you had concluded that I was impossible as a product and ought to be forgotten as quickly as possible and that you were brooding about how you were going to be able to inform me of this in a friendly and tactful way. (“Well, dear Tomas, ähmmm...I...I...have something to tell you that is not entirely pleasant...your poems have failed completely in this country but you are a wonderful pianist...”)

A few weeks ago the winter number of the BLY magazine from Tennessee arrived. I had a hell of a lot of trouble deciphering Allen Tate’s microscript but the others went down like butter. I remember most of the poems from that manuscript of yours that I read on Runmarö but I’d forgotten that “A Small Bird’s Nest” was so good. I don’t know why I’m so strangely affected by those intense nurses from the Crimean War. Immortal poem! Your two newest (“Black Ants” and “Love Poem”) are darkly fascinating—“Love Poem” totally incomprehensible. “Black Ants” makes me happy in an ecstatic black-and-green way.

It’s a hot summer night. I can’t manage to write as long a letter as I’d meant to when I began, but I’m sending a huge stack of clippings from this country; pay special attention to the last clipping (“Concerning Tranströmer”) which gives the ideological starting point of the representative young scribe. (Comrade Zhdanov nods from his mausoleum in a friendly way.) I’m also sending a moderate scribe who has reviewed
War and Silence
in BLM. (Never mention the terrible misinterpretation I made in your foreword. You are quite right. I must have been influenced by the cultural climate in Sweden.
Pitiful
!) Love to Carol and the children! I’ll write again soon.

Tomas

Västerås 12-8-69

Dear Robert,

every day a new thump from the postman. One day Stafford
(Tennessee Poetry Journal),
the next day
Naked Poetry,
the next day
Café Solo

thump

thump

      It is wonderful, I am rich. Probably tomorrow the invitation from Nixon you announced. I would definitely turn down Billy Graham. The only proper partner for me at the reading is Hammarskjöld’s ghost.

I am very fond of your mushroom poem. There are too few mushroom poems. You have dubbed me an old Chinese.

I could not resist the Devon barn piece, I had to make a first version of it (full of mistakes).

From the
Naked Poetry
²
I found out that Merwin could be translated into Swedish. I will try some pieces. The pictures of the poets are—as usual (look in the Scandinavian picture gallery I sent you)—the faces are often so (I have to look in the dictionary)...pretentious, presuming, presumptuous (look at Mezey himself). How blurred and humble your own portrait looks in this collection, it looks like some necessary figure in an old picture from the foundation of DADA in Zurich 1916 or something like that.

I send you a pamphlet and a document from the Swedish situation. Peer poets—no stamina.

Love to the family!

Yours

    Tomas

17-11-69

Dear Robert,

I am hammering on my typewriter again. Now, when the big march is over you can perhaps have time for a letter, and for answering it too. You were 300,000 in Washington the newspapers say. Good! I have been a nervous spectator of course—fearing that something would go wrong and give Nixon a reason to use all his Sturmbrigaden. It must be difficult to have 300,000 rotten apples in the barrel. (Maybe I use the wrong words—I have no dictionary here.) Göran Sonnevi called me the other day and read in the telephone some lines from a new and—as it sounded—very strong poem of yours. He was translating it but said that he wanted some help from me with “the Buddhistic parts.” Send it!

I spent 2 weeks in Eastern Europe in the end of October—2 of the most exciting weeks of my life. I was a cultural agent for the Swedish Institute and my mission was to establish links behind, through and beside the official bureaucratic lines. The contacts with countries behind the Iron Curtain have been too official, we have an exchange program but often get the politrucs instead of the real people. As I speak understandable German, am not a Marxist and not a conservative, not too young and not too old, not too unknown and not too well-known, not an official man and not too wild etc. I was chosen for the job. I have been working with translations from Hungarian (together with an exiled Hungarian poet) so I have some knowledge of Hungary, and Budapest was the main goal. In the last minute the Hungarians knew about my arrival and transformed me into “official guest of the Writers Union” and that meant that I was met at the airport by an energetic woman (“the interpreter”) and a big official schedule to run through. The interpreter complicated the situation in some quarters of course but she was tired in the afternoons so I could see my private addresses alone. I was glad to have the professional psychological training—Hungary is complicated. I met about 8 composers, 13 poets, 3 editors, 2 publishers, 1 director of an institution for delinquent boys, 20 ordinary people etc.

One of the men I wanted to invite to Sweden was János Pilinszky. You have met him in the poetry conference in London this summer. Pilinszky lives in one room in a flat in central Budapest (like most poor Hungarians he can’t afford a flat of his own). He is a wonderful guy, we spent a memorable evening together (without interpreter). His official position is weak and it is not granted that he could be allowed to go to Sweden (he is a pious Catholic and his wife has deserted to France). He spoke warmly about you—he was surprised that he could have such a good contact with one of those Americans who scared him first with their strange clothes and complete freedom of acting. Between 1948 and 1956 he was forbidden to publish one line of his own. Another man who was forced to silence during this time was Sándor Weöres and he is the other poet I will propose for invitation to Sweden. I have translated 5 of his poems for a radio program and for BLM. It was moving to meet these people who could keep their human integrity when treated like Pavlovian dogs for many years.

But the mood in Hungary today is relaxed when compared with Czechoslovakia. In Prague I was not an official guest but I had a letter of recommendation to the head of the foreign section of the Writers union (which until now has been miraculously intact—as in the Dubček days). The letter was written by the Czech lady whom you met in my house in 1968 and she wrote that I was a non-political poet. That is of course not completely true but it was useful as a
recommendation
in Prague! The head of the foreign section of the Writers union was a kind but very nervous fellow who spoke in 5 telephones and had a badly hurt right hand. He tried to give some official optimism for the future but his eyes were contradicting it. Then I was let free to meet anybody—and I did. I spent many hours discussing, and met the most massive and united pessimism. Writers, workers, members of the party, bourgeois people...all were reacting the same way. They were nice and understandable and they knew that they represented 99% of the public opinion but they were completely convinced that the remaining 1% were preparing terror, purges as in the old days. The climate had hardened just before my arrival when Husák closed the frontiers. They were desperately eager to keep some link with the rest of Europe so I suddenly felt the ridiculous character of the Swedish Institute, Cultural Exchange and such things disappear. I hope to be used some way in the future contacts. Sweden is in a position that gives opportunity to do
something.
Very little but something.

My family is all right. Emma [------] is very active: dancing, playing the flute, riding (she is mad about horses). The small one, Paula, still has round cheeks and is uncomplicated, her father’s best support. Do you know that Carol wrote a wonderful letter to Monica and me some months ago? We were so happy to get it and we are always longing to see you all again. Warm greetings!

Tomas

10 Dec, ’69

Dear Tomas,

Yes, the Washington march was marvellous. The
New York Times
correspondent estimated 650,000. I had been there for other marches, and there were at least 3 times as many this time. The A.P. wire said from 250,000 to a million, with no way to judge inbetween. Of course all the U.S. newspapers put down 250,000, and forgot the rest of the sentence. There were wonderful signs—you remember Agnew saying that the protestors were all “effete snobs.” One sign said, “God is an effete snob.” A joke around Washington was, “What is effete?” “That’s what Spiro Agnew puts in his mouth.” In the middle of the rally, Dick Gregory came on a minute, and said, “What makes me nervous is Nixon going abroad! That leaves only Agnew in the White House, and he’s just the type who’d make a crank call to the Kremlin on the hot line!”

Coming down off the Monument Hill at 5 in the afternoon when the rally ended, I wandered with a friend off toward the Justice Dept—there were about 5,000 of us in a three block stretch in front of the Justice Dept about 5:30—most of them curious strollers, or kids who didn’t know Washington and were looking for their buses. Nixon wanted to do something to impress the Legionnaires in Nebraska, so at 5:30 without warning the police suddenly started lobbing tear gas—(actually the CS gas used in Vietnam)—they must have exploded 25 to 30 canisters, in us, on top of us, and when we started to head for fresh air, ahead of us, in the air, so we’d have to run through it. Children screaming, women vomiting—wild scene. I had a tear gas cough all night. We’re all little lambs in Agnew’s pasture.

My long Vietnam poem—that must be the one Göran means—was sent to you months ago! I sent it to you first in June or so! I remember you didn’t mention it, so maybe it went astray. I’ve got a new title for it now, “The Teeth-Mother Naked at Last,” and it’s being printed this week. I’m printing 1,000 copies free to be given away by the Resistance at their offices. If you don’t have a copy, tell me. I’ll send a copy of the printed version—(many changes in it since the copy Göran received, and about eight new lines on “the teeth-mother”)—anyway, as soon as one arrives here.

I spent all of November out on the road, gathering money for the winter. James Wright and I gave a reading together in mid-Nov at a huge opera house in Pittsburgh—it was a joy. Christina Paulston was there—she and Rolland live near Pittsburgh now—she was stunned, by the way, at how much the Swedish versions in
Krig og tystnad
sounded like the original poems. She thought your translations were the best, but all were good; and she said the poems sounded as if they had been written in Swedish. (Of course, that’s possible.)