WEBVTT

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I welcome all
sorts of questions.

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Please.

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I can't really resist this one,
but just before the reading,

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we met somebody told us a story
of something that happened

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at this very University
recently, not

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in this department, having to
do with the creative writing

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people.

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But a professor was
criticized by students

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for mentioning
death in conjunction

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with a piece of music.

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And we happen to have
live music with this.

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It seemed a very odd
thing, and we've only

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come from Phoenix to Tucson.

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When you come from
Sweden, does it

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strike you as an amazing
fact of modern life,

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this poem to be criticized
for actually discussing death

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[INAUDIBLE]?

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No, I think 15, 20 years
ago, it was regarded

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as a subject you
shouldn't touch,

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but that has changed
a little in Sweden.

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I read death as--

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death is almost
popular now to talk--

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[LAUGHTER]

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It's-- for too long a time,
it has been a suppressed fact.

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I mean, especially in hospitals
and among medical people,

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they never mention death.

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They just hurry past
the dying people there.

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So this has changed
a little bit.

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And they are also
given certain advice

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for how to talk with
children about it.

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So it has to do with Elizabeth
Kubler-Ross, and all that.

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She-- I thought America is
always a little before us,

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so I thought the talk about
death was a little earlier

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here, but--

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well, it's a large country.

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I am a little shocked.

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There is too much dead people
in the poems I read, perhaps.

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Well, that was the
juxtaposition that struck me.

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Yeah, it happened
to be that way, yes.

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Sorry.

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Yeah.

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Can you talk a little bit
about the translation process

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you went through?

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Yeah, it's a very complicated
process for certain poems.

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I mean, if we take
this long poem I read,

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about the TV preacher
and all that.

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First it is written
in Swedish, and then I

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send it to Robin Fulton who
made the first version, which

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was full of mistakes.

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And he had real
problems with this,

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because there are
parts of the poem that

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simply are very strange to
the Anglo-Saxon language.

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But we were exchanging
letters about this.

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It was such a boring
process, but at last we

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found a version that seemed
to be completely readable.

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And then I-- today, was
sitting with Richard Shelton,

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and he discovered some
mistakes in the translation.

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So I mean, that
was the last stage.

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And what I will do is probably
to go back to Fulton and show

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him Dick's--

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not all, of course, but
most of his corrections,

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and see how many he can accept.

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And well, so-- it's a
typical translation process.

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Now it could be still
more complicated when

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you have very militant
professors or something,

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that think that they
have absolute authority

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over the process, and you
don't dare object at all.

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I have a personal relationship
to almost all my translators,

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so it's rather
easy to cooperate.

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It's a fantastic
advantage, and--

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well, it's not true about all
translators naturally, but--

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because sometimes you are
translated into languages where

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you have no connection at all.

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But what with the
English translators,

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I have a relationship
with the Dutch

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and with the German,
which are the--

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and Hungarian, that
are the languages where

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I have been mostly translating.

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Yeah.

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Do you ever try and
write in English?

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Not directly, but I once
made an English translation

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of prose piece that
was quite simple,

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the language was quite simple,
called "Icelandic Hurricane."

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That was even published in
a magazine called Pequod.

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But it's impossible, of course,
to do a translation of poetry

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if you don't know the hidden
dimensions behind the word.

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I mean, as a foreigner, I
cannot possibly know that.

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I can have it explained
to me word by word,

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this English word has this and
this, but it's complicated.

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Yeah, somebody?

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I discovered how you
were reading as a poet,

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as an artist in philosophy.

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Why?

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I said, I discovered
that [INAUDIBLE]

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was an artist in philosophy.

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Yeah, I'm glad to
hear that, because I

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am very poor philosopher.

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I mean, I am--

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I have difficulties
to be philosophical

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in the abstract way.

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When I am a philosopher,
I have to use my senses

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and I have to see
things in front of me,

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and so on and so on.

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And I am sometimes criticized
for being too naive

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and to have too little
of abstractions in me.

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So I am glad to be a sort
of philosopher, you know?

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I've noticed hearing
you today and reading

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your thoughts of the
past, that they have

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a certain density about the--

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I guess in the language
and other things

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that I don't expect
to translate for you.

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I used to translate poetry,
it feels like somehow diluted.

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It feels that something
has dropped out

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of the translation,
but [INAUDIBLE]..

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Has anyone commented
on that to you before,

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or do you have any explanation
for why that might be?

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I think it has to do
with the translators

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are poets themselves.

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I mean, Fulton is
an experienced poet.

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And his ambition is, of
course, to do something

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that is a poem in English
and not a translation,

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for instance.

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And of course, the poems are
a little denser in Swedish,

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because Swedish rhythm
is difficult to get over

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into English.

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But I'm glad to hear that
they have this quality.

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Do you have any favorite poets
of your own, contemporary?

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Oh, many, many, many.

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I mean, it goes up and down.

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Certain days you like somebody,
and the next day he's out.

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But among the 20th
century poets,

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if we should stick
to them, I think--

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Who's your favorite death poet?

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Oh, now that's still
more impossible to say.

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I mean, the-- what shall I say?

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I am influenced by all these
heroes, Eliot, and [INAUDIBLE],,

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and Whitman, and,
yes, Emily Dickinson.

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Would you say Wallace Stevens?

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Yes, partly, very much.

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Partly I think he is too
philosophical or abstract.

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I mean, there are certain
poems I think are wonderful,

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but he's difficult to
translate, because something--

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the music in his poetry
gets lost very much,

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and only the
philosophy remains when

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you translate Wallace Stevens.

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That's my impression.

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