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Friends, You Drank Some Darkness, Three Swedish Poets: Harry Martinson, Gunnar Ekelöf & Tomas Tranströmer
Robert Bly, one of America's most accomplished poets and translators, considers and translates the work of Harry Martinson, co-recepient of the 1974 Nobel Prize for Literature, and two other Swedish poets, Gunnar Ekelof and Tomas Transtromer.
- GenresPoetryAnthologies
280 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1970
3 people are currently reading
122 people want to read
About the author
Robert Bly
284 books414 followersRobert Bly was an American poet, author, activist and leader of the Mythopoetic Men's Movement.
Robert Bly was born in western Minnesota in 1926 to parents of Norwegian stock. He enlisted in the Navy in 1944 and spent two years there. After one year at St. Olaf College in Minnesota, he transferred to Harvard and thereby joined the famous group of writers who were undergraduates at that time, which included Donald Hall, Adrienne Rich, Kenneth Koch, John Ashbery, Harold Brodky, George Plimpton, and John Hawkes. He graduated in 1950 and spent the next few years in New York living, as they say, hand to mouth.
Beginning in 1954, he took two years at the University of Iowa at the Writers Workshop along with W. D. Snodgrass, Donald Justice, and others. In 1956 he received a Fulbright grant to travel to Norway and translate Norwegian poetry into English. While there he found not only his relatives but the work of a number of major poets whose force was not present in the United States, among them Pablo Neruda, Cesar Vallejo, Gunnar Ekelof, Georg Trakl and Harry Martinson. He determined then to start a literary magazine for poetry translation in the United States and so begin The Fifties and The Sixties and The Seventies, which introduced many of these poets to the writers of his generation, and published as well essays on American poets and insults to those deserving. During this time he lived on a farm in Minnesota with his wife and children.
In 1966 he co-founded American Writers Against the Vietnam War and led much of the opposition among writers to that war. When he won the National Book Award for The Light Around the Body, he contributed the prize money to the Resistance. During the 70s he published eleven books of poetry, essays, and translations, celebrating the power of myth, Indian ecstatic poetry, meditation, and storytelling. During the 80s he published Loving a Woman in Two Worlds, The Wingéd Life: Selected Poems and Prose of Thoreau,The Man in the Black Coat Turns, and A Little Book on the Human Shadow.
His work Iron John: A Book About Men is an international bestseller which has been translated into many languages. He frequently does workshops for men with James Hillman and others, and workshops for men and women with Marion Woodman. He and his wife Ruth, along with the storyteller Gioia Timpanelli, frequently conduct seminars on European fairy tales. In the early 90s, with James Hillman and Michael Meade, he edited The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart, an anthology of poems from the men's work. Since then he has edited The Darkness Around Us Is Deep: Selected Poems of William Stafford, and The Soul Is Here for Its Own Joy, a collection of sacred poetry from many cultures.
Robert Bly was born in western Minnesota in 1926 to parents of Norwegian stock. He enlisted in the Navy in 1944 and spent two years there. After one year at St. Olaf College in Minnesota, he transferred to Harvard and thereby joined the famous group of writers who were undergraduates at that time, which included Donald Hall, Adrienne Rich, Kenneth Koch, John Ashbery, Harold Brodky, George Plimpton, and John Hawkes. He graduated in 1950 and spent the next few years in New York living, as they say, hand to mouth.
Beginning in 1954, he took two years at the University of Iowa at the Writers Workshop along with W. D. Snodgrass, Donald Justice, and others. In 1956 he received a Fulbright grant to travel to Norway and translate Norwegian poetry into English. While there he found not only his relatives but the work of a number of major poets whose force was not present in the United States, among them Pablo Neruda, Cesar Vallejo, Gunnar Ekelof, Georg Trakl and Harry Martinson. He determined then to start a literary magazine for poetry translation in the United States and so begin The Fifties and The Sixties and The Seventies, which introduced many of these poets to the writers of his generation, and published as well essays on American poets and insults to those deserving. During this time he lived on a farm in Minnesota with his wife and children.
In 1966 he co-founded American Writers Against the Vietnam War and led much of the opposition among writers to that war. When he won the National Book Award for The Light Around the Body, he contributed the prize money to the Resistance. During the 70s he published eleven books of poetry, essays, and translations, celebrating the power of myth, Indian ecstatic poetry, meditation, and storytelling. During the 80s he published Loving a Woman in Two Worlds, The Wingéd Life: Selected Poems and Prose of Thoreau,The Man in the Black Coat Turns, and A Little Book on the Human Shadow.
His work Iron John: A Book About Men is an international bestseller which has been translated into many languages. He frequently does workshops for men with James Hillman and others, and workshops for men and women with Marion Woodman. He and his wife Ruth, along with the storyteller Gioia Timpanelli, frequently conduct seminars on European fairy tales. In the early 90s, with James Hillman and Michael Meade, he edited The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart, an anthology of poems from the men's work. Since then he has edited The Darkness Around Us Is Deep: Selected Poems of William Stafford, and The Soul Is Here for Its Own Joy, a collection of sacred poetry from many cultures.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
December 8, 2017
I read this book because 1) I have read all my life the poetry of Robert Bly, including 2) his translations, and this is one book I think I never read. It features the poetry of three Swedish poets, Harry Martinson, Gunnar Ekelöf & Tomas Tranströmer. Martinson was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature n 1974, and Tranströmer was awarded the Nobel in 2011. A pretty small country for that kind of recognition, eh? I also read it 3) because I had read Tranströmer’s The Half-Finished Heaven and thought I would like to see his work in the context of his fellow poets’ work. I have a musty library copy of the Seventies Press edition of this book, which I loved reading/smelling. I love and have always loved Bly, so I didn’t mind that some of the poetry reads like Bly; that’s the peril/virtue of translation. It’s not science. Poets write (and translate poetry into) poetry. I also 4) loved Bly’s title of this book!
1. Martinson’s poetry was unfamiliar to me. His father died, his mother emigrated to the U.S. and left him to be raised by various people; he went to sea and wrote much of his work out of that, with a focus on nature:
"Power" (1931):
The engineer sits by the big wheel,
all through the June night, reading.
The power station mumbles introverted in the turbines,
its leafy, embedded heart beats calm and strong.
The timid birch stands tall by the concrete mouth of the dam;
not a leaf quivers.
The hedgehog slobbers along the river bank.
The guard's cat listens hungrily to birdsong.
And the power whistles away along a hundred miles of wire
before it suddenly rumbles down into the braggart cities.
Translation, Robert Bly
2. I didn’t really know the poetry of Gunnar Ekelöf at all; his is work that draws on surrealism and the poetry of Persia (Iran). I liked it quite a bit, that mashing of Asian and surrealist mysticism:
"The Flowers Doze in the Window” (1932)
The flowers doze in the window and the lamp gazes / light
the window gazes with thoughtless eyes out into the / dark
paintings exhibit without soul the thought confided / to then
and houseflies stand still on the walls and think
the flowers lean into the night and the lamp weaves / light
the cat in the corner weaves woolen yarn to sleep with
on the stove the coffeepot snores now and then with / pleasure
the children play quietly on the floor with words
the table set with white cloth is waiting for someone
whose feet never will come up the stairs
a train-whistle tunneling through the silence in the / distance
does not find out what the secret of things is
but fate counts the strokes of the pendulum by / decimals
Robert Bly, translation
3. My favorite poet by far of these three is Tranströmer, though. His poetry features powerful imagery concerned with issues of fragmentation and isolation. He suffered a stroke later in his life, paralyzing half of his body; prior to his stroke, he worked as a psychologist, focusing on the juvenile prison population. News of his stroke prompted various composers around the world to create one-hand piano compositions for him:
“Allegro” (1954)
After a black day, I play Haydn,
and feel a little warmth in my hands.
The keys are ready. Kind hammers fall.
The sound is spirited, green, and full of silence.
The sound says that freedom exists
and someone pays no tax to Caesar.
I shove my hands in my haydnpockets
and act like a man who is calm about it all.
I raise my haydnflag. The signal is:
“We do not surrender. But want peace.”
The music is a house of glass standing on a slope;
rocks are flying, rocks are rolling.
The rocks roll straight through the house
but every pane of glass is still whole.
Robert Bly, translation
1. Martinson’s poetry was unfamiliar to me. His father died, his mother emigrated to the U.S. and left him to be raised by various people; he went to sea and wrote much of his work out of that, with a focus on nature:
"Power" (1931):
The engineer sits by the big wheel,
all through the June night, reading.
The power station mumbles introverted in the turbines,
its leafy, embedded heart beats calm and strong.
The timid birch stands tall by the concrete mouth of the dam;
not a leaf quivers.
The hedgehog slobbers along the river bank.
The guard's cat listens hungrily to birdsong.
And the power whistles away along a hundred miles of wire
before it suddenly rumbles down into the braggart cities.
Translation, Robert Bly
2. I didn’t really know the poetry of Gunnar Ekelöf at all; his is work that draws on surrealism and the poetry of Persia (Iran). I liked it quite a bit, that mashing of Asian and surrealist mysticism:
"The Flowers Doze in the Window” (1932)
The flowers doze in the window and the lamp gazes / light
the window gazes with thoughtless eyes out into the / dark
paintings exhibit without soul the thought confided / to then
and houseflies stand still on the walls and think
the flowers lean into the night and the lamp weaves / light
the cat in the corner weaves woolen yarn to sleep with
on the stove the coffeepot snores now and then with / pleasure
the children play quietly on the floor with words
the table set with white cloth is waiting for someone
whose feet never will come up the stairs
a train-whistle tunneling through the silence in the / distance
does not find out what the secret of things is
but fate counts the strokes of the pendulum by / decimals
Robert Bly, translation
3. My favorite poet by far of these three is Tranströmer, though. His poetry features powerful imagery concerned with issues of fragmentation and isolation. He suffered a stroke later in his life, paralyzing half of his body; prior to his stroke, he worked as a psychologist, focusing on the juvenile prison population. News of his stroke prompted various composers around the world to create one-hand piano compositions for him:
“Allegro” (1954)
After a black day, I play Haydn,
and feel a little warmth in my hands.
The keys are ready. Kind hammers fall.
The sound is spirited, green, and full of silence.
The sound says that freedom exists
and someone pays no tax to Caesar.
I shove my hands in my haydnpockets
and act like a man who is calm about it all.
I raise my haydnflag. The signal is:
“We do not surrender. But want peace.”
The music is a house of glass standing on a slope;
rocks are flying, rocks are rolling.
The rocks roll straight through the house
but every pane of glass is still whole.
Robert Bly, translation
July 13, 2017
So much that can neither be written nor kept inside!
— Tomas Tranströmer
— Tomas Tranströmer
February 19, 2025
I found Tranströmer to be the most accessible, which probably says more about me than the translator.
"At times my life suddenly opens its eyes in the dark.
A feeling of masses of people pushing blindly
through the streets, excitedly, toward some miracle,
while I remain here and no one sees me.
It is like the child who falls asleep in terror
listening to the heavy thumps of his heart.
For a long, long time till morning puts his light in the locks
and the doors of darkness open."
"At times my life suddenly opens its eyes in the dark.
A feeling of masses of people pushing blindly
through the streets, excitedly, toward some miracle,
while I remain here and no one sees me.
It is like the child who falls asleep in terror
listening to the heavy thumps of his heart.
For a long, long time till morning puts his light in the locks
and the doors of darkness open."
December 21, 2017
So...there are so many parts of this book to review, here I am going to focus on the poetry and then translation.
Harry Martinson: nature, fishing, boating. These are GORGEOUS in Swedish. If you read them aloud they have such a musicality to them that I found myself dwelling on them and rereading parts over and over.
Gunnar Ekelöf: to me these were VERY Scandinavian. Often with themes of nature, especially farming, or tranquility and then a sharp turn toward darkness or depression at the end.
Tomas Tranströmer: Um yeah. I just didn't get these. And since my Swedish isn't fluent I spent too much time trying to figure out if I didn't get it or if I just didn't understand the analogies or similes due to lack of fluency. But after reading all of them in English I am going to say that I just don't connect with these.
Translation: As a I said I am not fluent in Swedish but I am definitely convergent and I am using books to improve my grammar and vocab. I would have translated a lot of these poems differently so I cannot in good conscious recommend this book/translation to English speakers. Now I normally think that translation decisions are very complicated and translating poetry is particularly difficult, so I didn't expect things like the musicality of Martinson's poems to be captured in the translation but I felt there was a lot of nuance in the words that was missing. For instance (and there are a lot of instances) a word might be translated as human beings and really it often means something more like humankind.
Overall though the experience I personally had reading this side by side translation was AMAZING. I learned some words for water birds, fishing terms, and farming words beyond bönder.
Harry Martinson: nature, fishing, boating. These are GORGEOUS in Swedish. If you read them aloud they have such a musicality to them that I found myself dwelling on them and rereading parts over and over.
Gunnar Ekelöf: to me these were VERY Scandinavian. Often with themes of nature, especially farming, or tranquility and then a sharp turn toward darkness or depression at the end.
Tomas Tranströmer: Um yeah. I just didn't get these. And since my Swedish isn't fluent I spent too much time trying to figure out if I didn't get it or if I just didn't understand the analogies or similes due to lack of fluency. But after reading all of them in English I am going to say that I just don't connect with these.
Translation: As a I said I am not fluent in Swedish but I am definitely convergent and I am using books to improve my grammar and vocab. I would have translated a lot of these poems differently so I cannot in good conscious recommend this book/translation to English speakers. Now I normally think that translation decisions are very complicated and translating poetry is particularly difficult, so I didn't expect things like the musicality of Martinson's poems to be captured in the translation but I felt there was a lot of nuance in the words that was missing. For instance (and there are a lot of instances) a word might be translated as human beings and really it often means something more like humankind.
Overall though the experience I personally had reading this side by side translation was AMAZING. I learned some words for water birds, fishing terms, and farming words beyond bönder.
May 20, 2022
The tent, the sail, the white sky
and the pale grape of your breast:
visions like this made me a conquistador,
I drove off with chariot wheels dry as bones
rattling out of the dustcloud
going toward snowhite Thebes,
going toward black Trondheim:
there we read the future in a teacup
and in hands
recklessly and absently
while our souls the same night were traveling on the
other side of the world.
—Harry Martinson
The stars are clear tonight.
The air is pure and cold.
The moon is looking for her lost
inheritance everywhere.
A window, a branch in blossom
and that is enough:
No blossom without earth.
No earth without space.
No space without blossom.
—Gunnar Ekelöf
The moon-mast has rotted, and the sail crinkled.
The seagull sails drunk above the water.
The thick dock-cube is charred. Bushes crouch down in
the dark.
Out on the stoop. The sunrise is opening and slamming
granite gates of the ocean and the sun sparkles
near the world. Half-suffocated summer gods grope
in the seasmoke.
—Tomas Tranströmer
September 21, 2022
Mallarmé believed there should be mystery in poetry, and urged poets to get it, if necessary, by removing the links that tie the poem to its occasion in the real world. On reading this wonderful collection of old Swedish poems, it occurs to me that the tradition's most unique quality is its refusal to follow Mallarmé's rule – that is, the link to the world is stubbornly kept; and yet the poems retain a mystery and surprise that never fade, even on many readings. It also helps that Bly's translations, as usual, are so clean and direct they seem to bypass language itself. Most of the Martinson & Tranströmer poems I was already familiar with, so reading them again felt much like visiting old friends. Ekelöf, who is probably the most difficult of the great Swedish poets, I will likely have to read again. It is not easy to follow his successions of thought, but the language is rich and mystical, which gives his work an almost surrealist quality.
January 2, 2025
I love this collection. The pieces are often quite simple, yet they open up the world in new ways before our eyes. The language in the mouth of Bly’s translations is hard to imagine it could be better. And the title line of the book from one of Transtromer’s poems is indicative of the power in the words.
October 6, 2025
Transtromer the strongest of the three, for me.
"Traffic" maybe my favorite poem of the collection.
"Traffic" maybe my favorite poem of the collection.
unfinished
February 14, 2017Had to return this to the library before I had time to finish it. I read some of the poems by Harry Martinson, which were quite interesting.
June 28, 2014
I thought Harry Martinson was the best of the three, though I'd never heard of him before. (A sailor turned writer like Joseph Conrad, he was the Nobel winner in 1974). Bly's translation seemed a little flowery compared to the starker Swedish originals, which also often rhyme, but he did a huge service to poetry by introducing Tranströmer especially to English-speaking readers. (Tranströmer was still a young psychologist at a boys' prison when this book came out and Bly definitely contributed to making his career.)
What he wrote about Martinson, the most proletarian of the three, is just spot-on:
"Harry Martinson was born in 1904. When he was fifteen he ran away from home, and went to sea, and went on working as a seaman while all of his poetic contemporaries were going to universities or arguing about Spengler and Valery. It is clear from the nakedness of his poems that for years he walked around the world in charge of his own skin, and of little more."
What he wrote about Martinson, the most proletarian of the three, is just spot-on:
"Harry Martinson was born in 1904. When he was fifteen he ran away from home, and went to sea, and went on working as a seaman while all of his poetic contemporaries were going to universities or arguing about Spengler and Valery. It is clear from the nakedness of his poems that for years he walked around the world in charge of his own skin, and of little more."
July 21, 2012
Probably three stars for Ekelof. The other two did nothing for me.
Bly says: "In Swedish literature there is a much firmer division between 'country' and 'city' writing than there is in America or England . . . . Ekelof very clearly in the second [group]." I almost always prefer city writing. Country poets tend to reach into rotted trees, come out with a handful of damp mulch, and try to endow it with a murky spirit. If you can't set fire to it, at least apply a flint to the mind. City poetry does that better.
It's also occurred to me that Bly translates more languages than he's likely to speak. I read his "8 Stages of Translation" in college and experimented with translating some Spanish poetry (I don't speak Spanish). It's a fun exercise, but I'm not sure it makes for consistently readable poems. Bly is an egregious over-reacher.
Bly says: "In Swedish literature there is a much firmer division between 'country' and 'city' writing than there is in America or England . . . . Ekelof very clearly in the second [group]." I almost always prefer city writing. Country poets tend to reach into rotted trees, come out with a handful of damp mulch, and try to endow it with a murky spirit. If you can't set fire to it, at least apply a flint to the mind. City poetry does that better.
It's also occurred to me that Bly translates more languages than he's likely to speak. I read his "8 Stages of Translation" in college and experimented with translating some Spanish poetry (I don't speak Spanish). It's a fun exercise, but I'm not sure it makes for consistently readable poems. Bly is an egregious over-reacher.
January 10, 2009
i have no way to know how accurate these translations are, but robert bly certainly does a beautiful job with all three swedish poets. there are so many stand-out poems in here, that it's not worth the time to name them. having exposure to three swedish poets in one volume (as opposed to an anthology of many or a single-poet translation) allows a better sense of the similarities and differences between poets and of each poet's personality. tight, eloquent, atmospheric language throughout. highly recommended to other poets.
Read
December 13, 2012I read this as an adjunct to Robert Bly's anthology The Winged Energy of Delight. It wasn't necessary; just get The Winged Energy of Delight instead, all the best poems are in there.
May 7, 2014
H.M 3.75
G.E. 5.0
T.T. 3.5
G.E. 5.0
T.T. 3.5
October 22, 2007
I loved Ekelof and Transtromer the best.
May 8, 2008
Three fabulous Swedish poets rendered beautiful by Robert Bly.
March 21, 2009
Collection of 3 Swedish poets
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews