"A choice of Swedish verse"

Veronica alpina

[Image source: http://vandra.mior.se/fjallflora/en/A/bild/28/en/ ]


I have the perhaps bad habit, for a blogger, of continuing to tinker with posts long after they've been posted. But I don't think any have transformed as much as this one, which began as three pages of translation and has ended up being over thirty... in fact, Curt Lofterud's complete booklet about the geology, botany, history etc of locations on a well-known hiking route in the Jämtland fells.

I'm very interested in that part of the world myself, and I walked the route back in 2016. So it was an obvious way of improving my Swedish while learning about the fells. I hadn't quite anticipated that it would be not only a challenge to my language skills but would also require learning quite a lot about the geomorphology of glaciers, ice ages, snow, and ground-frost.

Anyway, now this self-imposed task is finally complete, it's time to think up another one. And a couple of evenings ago I got excited by the rather obvious idea, considering my obsessions, of making a translated anthology of Swedish-language poetry (Swedish poets for the most part, but also Finland-Swedish poets). After all, I've already translated quite a few poems over the years (in particular, by Karin Boye). In that moment of euphoria, I was almost at the point of drafting pitches to publishers.

But then, hesitations crept in. I knew that with such rudimentary knowledge of the language as mine, it would be slow, difficult work. Perhaps I'm not ready for this yet.

I have many other disqualifications too. I'm not really interested in literary history or any kind of overview. Consequently there are many poets considered important that I scarcely know at all. I would naturally want to represent experimental poetry but I feel my knowledge of experimental poetry in Swedish is very slight indeed. To undertake such an anthology one would surely need a direct engagement with the contemporary scene: to live there, be fluent, know some of the poets personally.

But this kind of anthology wasn't even what I wanted to do. I'm sceptical of books that claim to define a canon or outline a culture representatively. My book would have to be a more personal exploration, beginning from ignorance. I felt particularly unexcited by the thought of translating big poets like Tranströmer and Martinson and Ekelöf who have been well translated already. Instead, I would like to find other materials, popular and unpopular, and slowly uncover a picture whose features I didn't know in advance. A picture of what? A developed and prosperous western nation -- Is that what the world needs more of? It was another thought to make one pause. Would I even want to confirm nationality as a lazy system of forming our conceptions?

At about this point in my ruminations, I suddenly remembered that I didn't even like poetry anthologies... Though, of course, I do use them. I prefer books of individual poets... I have more of a chance of getting to know the poets. Gobbling up an anthology, I lose a sense of the individual poem's context and its author. So why would I want to produce a book I wouldn't myself enjoy? Well, there could be many good reasons for doing that, but right now I'm looking for a kind of congruence.

What was great about translating the booklet was that I wasn't thinking of anyone else, I just wanted to spend virtual time in the fells. And there's very little demand for English-language info about these fells; practically all the people we walked with in 2016 were Swedes. I suppose every nation has its international magnets and its local attractions... The "friendly triangle" was firmly in the latter class.

I feel the same about the kind of Swedish poems I'd like to translate. The less they address an international poetry audience, the more interested I am. I say to the poem: You must really know something.