the rainbow

*

THE TIGHTROPE WALKER

Forward and back

and around and back

on a piece of string

above water.

Rainbow

every time

she falls in.

Then repeat.

She recalls her history

the tightrope-walker's curse

always to start over

and always dare again

to fall

again

dares to fall

then repeat

Never forgets the fall

the tightrope-walker's duty is

to never stop getting up

again on the tightrope

to walk back and again

forward again

dares to fall

again

dares to get up

The tightrope-walker trains,

she plays music

on her stereo

one pace

and one foot

at a time.

On the album sleeve

Glenn Gould

playing the

piano

*

LINDANSÖSEN

Fram och så tillbaka

så tillbaks och åter

på en sytråd

ovanför ett vatten.

Regnbåge

varenda gång

hon faller.

Sedan repetera.

Minnas sin historia

lindansösens plåga

alltid börja om

och alltid åter våga

falla

åter

våga falla

sedan repetera

Aldrig glömma fallet

lindansösens plikt är

aldrig sluta stiga

åter upp på linan

gå tillbaks och åter

framåt åter

våga falla

åter

våga stiga

Lindansösen tränar,

hon spelar

på stereo

en takt

och en fot

i taget.

På skivomslaget

Glenn Gould

när han spelar

piano

*

I've just found out that Bodil Malmsten died of cancer, just over a year ago, in February 2016.  She was 71.

I felt more shocked than I usually do when poets die. Somehow I always thought of her, and I still do, as a young contemporary, an energetic and disruptive and likeable and reliable presence.

An everyday author. No-one ever said she ought to get the Nobel Prize. She wrote thirty books, of which the best-known were about her life in Finistère. I imagine she's not much known outside the Nordic-Baltic world. I try to read her tousled informal poems in Swedish.  The prose is easier. In my family we always go back to Mitt första liv, especially the chapters about her childhood in Jämtland.

"The Tightrope Walker" comes from her first poetry collection, Gustav the Dwarf (1977). The poems in this collection are linked and they generally have a circus kind of setting.

What is an everyday author? One we have grown up with and lived alongside. Someone who reminds us who we are, and who comforts us by saying: Look, our generation didn't know it all, we got a lot of things wrong, but at least we were this good...

I expect I'll be attempting some more Malmsten translations in coming weeks.

Announcement in Svenska Dagbladet, 6th February 2016:

https://www.svd.se/forfattaren-bodil-malmsten-dod/om/kultur#