Yeah, I think I will start with reading two or three poems
in Swedish and also English.
Well, I'll start with a poem by Harry Martinson.
He is included in this book.
It's a printing of Robert Bly's translations from Swedish.
And it starts with a section with Harry Martinson,
and I want to read a few of his poems
because I think they are awfully good.
Martinson was born, well, 70 years ago,
and he was a sailor in the 1920s.
So the poem here, called "The Cable Ship,"
is actually from his personal experience.
Kabelskepp
Vi fiskade upp atlantkabeln mellan Barbados och Tortuga
höllo upp lyktorna och beslogo nytt katschuk på såret i dess rygg
15 grader nordlig bredd, 61 grader västlig längd.
När vi satte örat till det gnagda stället hörde vi hur det surrade i kabeln.
- Det är miljonärerna i Montreal och St. John's
som tala om priset på kubasockret och sänkningen av våra hyror, sa en av oss.
Vi stod där länge och tänkte, i en krets av lyktor,
vi tåliga kabelfiskare,
så sänkte vi den lagade kabeln ned till sin plats i havet.
"The Cable Ship."
"We fished up the Atlantic Cable one day between the Barbadoes
and the Tortugas, held up our lanterns,
and put some rubber over the wound in its back.
Latitude 15 degrees north, longitude, 61 degrees west.
When we laid our ear down to the gnawed place,
we could hear something humming inside the cable.
'It's some millionaires in Montreal and St.
John talking over the price of a Cuban sugar and ways to reduce
our wages,' one of us said.
For a long time, we stood there thinking
in a circle of lanterns.
We are all patient cable fishermen.
Then we let the coated cable fall back
to its place in the sea."