Lars Gustafsson (born May 17, 1936) is a Swedish, poet, novelist and scholar. He was born in Västerås, completed his secondary education at the Västerås gymnasium and continued to Uppsala University; he received his Licentiate degree in 1960 and was awarded his Ph.D. in Theoretical Philosophy in 1978. He lived in Austin, Texas until 2003, and has recently returned to Sweden. He served as a professor at the University of Texas in Austin, Texas, where he taught Philosophy and Creative Writing, until May 2006, when he retired. Gustafsson is one of the most prolific Swedish writers since August Strindberg. Since the late 1950s he has produced a voluminous flow of poetry, novels, short stories, critical essays, and editorials. He is also an example of a Swedish writer who has gained international recognition with literary awards such as the Prix International Charles Veillon des Essais in 1983, the Heinrich Steffens Preis in 1986, Una Vita per la Litteratura in 1989, a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship for poetry in 1994, and several others.

Nyårskantat år 2007

In med tenorerna i höga lägen, pukslag!
Snabb övergång från ess-moll till C-dur!

Champagnekorkarna som lättar

är som änderna som flyger upp ur vassen
skrämda utav kyrkklockor och ångbåtsvisslor

Jag har aldrig förstått varför man firar nyår
Mig skrämmer de rejält

på samma sätt som morgnar skrämmer
med sitt kalla ljus. De vill för mycket.

Varje år som vi har upplevt
var en gång ett nyår.

Vad är skillnaden emellan framtid
och förfluten tid? Ingen vet.

Vad väntar oss strax bakom hörnet?
Krig, pest och annat fanskap? Eller Eden?

Ej kan vanans nötta läxa
Evigt repas upp igen

skrev en aktad kollega,
herr Tegnér, år 1813.

Jaså kan den inte det?
Hur kan man vara så säker på det?
Vissa dagar kan man undra.

Får man skriva så i en kantat?
Det är nog fel. Kantaten är beställd.

Beställaren är optimist.
Vi antar det i alla fall.
Hans yrke kräver det.

In med tenorerna
i höga lägen, pukslag,
snabb övergång till C-dur!

Vet: denna match är inte avgjord än.
Slutsignalen dröjer.
Minuter och sekunder!

Visst finns här plats för någon överraskning.
Visst gör det så!

Sensationsmål  i sista sekunden!
Ett sådant där som ändrar hela läget!

Och i det mellanrummet,
i en hårfin spricka mellan tid och tid

där allt är möjligt, önskar jag er lycka till.
Mellan ”inte än” och ”strax”

hörs nu tydligt ljudet av
en kork som lycklig lämnar flaskan.

New Year’s Canto year 2007

In with the tenors’ high notes, kettle-drumbeats!
Quick transition from E flat minor to C major!

The champagne corks taking flight are the wild ducks dashing out of the reeds
frightened by church bells and steam-boat whistles

I have never understood why they celebrate new years They scare me soundly

in the same way that mornings scare with their cold light. They want too much.
Every year we have known was once a new year.

What is the difference between future
and past time? No one knows.

What awaits us around the corner?
War, pestilence and other damned nuisance? Or Eden?

The worn lesson of habit cannot
Eternally be unravelled

wrote an esteemed colleague,
Mr Tegnér, in 1813.

Oh, can it not?
How can we be so sure?
Some days make you wonder.

Can you really write that in a canto?
It is probably wrong. The canto is commissioned.

The commissioner is an optimist.
We assume so at least.
His profession demands it.

In with the tenors’ high notes, kettle-drumbeats,
quick transition to C major!

Know this: this match is not yet decided.
The final whistle is delayed.
Minutes and seconds!

Of course there is room for some surprise.
Of course there is!

A last-minute sensational goal!
One of those that change everything!

And in that interspace
in the thin rift between time and time

where everything is possible, I wish you good luck.
Between “not yet” and “soon”

the clear sound can now be heard of
a cork happily leaving the bottle.

Primtalen

De första
är mörka fästningar

som byggdes av furstar
i en längesedan bortglömd tid.

De ligger tätt intill varandra
och kastar långa skuggor,

landet omkring dem är en platt
och svårförsvarad våtmark.

De är byggda av en stenart
som ingen tid kan söndervittra

och alla de andra är byar
som hukar runtomkring dem.

Sedan blir de allt sällsyntare:

man måste rida länge över stora slätter
för att se ännu en vid horisonten.

Sanningen är att de blir allt färre
på sin väg emot de ofattbara djupen

Och doktor Riemanns skugga står
onaturligt hög och varnande

i en oändlig solnedgång

The Prime Numbers

The first are dark fortresses
built by princes

in a long-forgotten time.
They lie close together and throw long shadows,

the land around them is flat
and hard-to-defend wetlands.

They are built from a variety of stone
that no time can crumble away

and all the others are villages
crouching around them.

Then they become more rare:

you have to ride across vast plains
to see yet another on the horizon.

Truth is, they grow far fewer
on their way toward the unfathomable depths

And doctor Riemann’s shadow stands
unnaturally tall and cautionary

in an infinite sunset

Sjöarna

Sjöar utan öar
har inte mycket att säga.
De ligger där på sin plats.

Vänern
detta Mellansveriges bleka emaljöga
skulle då kunna tjäna som exempel.
Exempel på vad?
På sig själv, naturligtvis.

*

Sverige, somrarnas ljumma regnland
med tydlig doft av allt som
murknar, ruttnar, flagnar
De gamla ensamma husen i skogen
sjunker långsamt in i sig själva
och ett mossigt äppelträd
försöker berätta, men
kommer sig inte riktigt för
att komma ut med sanningen.
Berätta om vad?
Sanningen, som är alltför förskräcklig.

I somrarnas milda regnland
blir det inte så mycket över att säga.
Hörendesjön  inåtvänd.
Och sedan mörkret,
en våt och ljummen mur.
Vi signalerar över sjön
med våra alltför svaga lampor.
”Och sedan mörkret”

Logonauten lyssnade uppmärksamt.
Och kommenterade sedan
på sitt stillsamma sätt:
”Den som har stora mörka rum
inom sig, mörka som potatiskällare,
mörka som rummet mellan galaxerna,
känner sällan mörkrädsla.”

The Lakes

Lakes without islands
do not have much to say.
They lie in their place.

Lake Vänern
this the pale glass eye of middle Sweden
could thus be an example.
An example of what?
Of itself, of course.

*

Sweden, the land of warm summer rain
with a palpable scent of everything that
decays, rots, peals
The old lonely houses in the forest
slowly sink into themselves
and a mossy apple tree
tries to tell, but
cannot really bring itself
to tell the truth.
To tell what?
The truth, which is too terrible.
In the land of warm summer rain
there is not much left to say.
Lake Hörende turned inside itself. And then the darkness,
a wet and warm wall.
We signal over the lake
with our too-weak lamps.
“And then the darkness”

The logonaut listened carefully.
And then commented
in his quiet way: “He who has large dark rooms
inside himself, dark as potato cellars,
dark as the room between the galaxies,
is seldom afraid of the dark.”

En försommardag vid Björn Nilssons grav

(Midsommar 2005)

Väster Våla kyrkogård i försommarljuset
och med den vänliga sydvästvind över

Bruslings ängar som måste ha rått
den milda förmiddag på sextiotalet

när vi uppfann Monstret i Bo Gryta.
Monstret var en jättemal, och vi behövde den

för att ha något att skriva om i Expressen.
(Det var en av dessa  förargliga veckor

när inget vill hända,

världshistorien tvekar eller grubblar
på hur nästa verkligt taskiga överraskning

skall se ut och ingen stjärna hade brutit benet.)

Bo Gryta är ett djuphål i Åmänningen.
Man hittar det någon kilometer utanför

Bodarnes och Vretarnas byar, på en linje
mellan den gamla Bodahamnen, där vraket

efter en i åskby kantrad och sjunken malmjakt
skall ligga men ingen vet var, och Tandläkarudden.

Hur djupt detta djuphål är? Ingen vet.
Mången har försökt med lod och lina.

Och när linan kom upp, avbiten
lika elegant som av en rakkniv

eller kättingen de prövade i stället
lika blank och prydlig i snittet

efter vad som väl bara kunde vara
mycket stora tänder, gav man

upp försöken. Christopher Middleton
beskrev dem i sin dikt ”The Mole”.

Det blev förvisso verkningsfullt,
för ett par somrar senare kom en busslast

av engelsmän, excentriker och experter
på djupa sjöars monster. De lodade

och antecknade. Per Brusling bjöd på kaffe,
nu en äldre man som vet en del om sjön.

Över Björn Nilssons grav går sommarvinden.
Och jag fruktar att jag är den ende nu som vet

hur det egentligen gick till.

Expeditionen återvände
djupt övertygad att denna jättemal,

inte bara jättelik och illasinnad,

också är slug, mycket slug
och vet att gömma sig i dunkla djup

närhelst det kommer någon dit
som söker den.

An early Summer’s Day by Björn Nilsson’s Grave

(Midsummer 2005)

Väster Våla graveyard in the early summer light
and with the kind south-westerly over

Bruslings meadows that must have blown
on this mild morning in the sixties

when we invented the Monster of Bo Gryta.
The Monster was a giant catfish and we needed it

to have something to write about in Expressen.
(It was one of those annoying weeks

where nothing happens,

world history hesitates or deliberates
over what the next really crude surprise

will be and no star had broken a leg.)

Bo Gryta is a deep hole in Åmänningen.
You will find it about a kilometer outside

the villages of Bodarne and Vretarna, on a line
between the old Boda harbour, where the wreck

of an in a thunderstorm turned and sunken iron ore carrier
supposedly lies but no one knows where, and Tandläkarudden.

How deep this deep hole is? No one knows.
Many have tried by lead and line.

And when the line came up, bitten off
as elegantly as by a barber’s knife

or the chain they tried instead
as neat and tidy in its incision

after what surely could only be
very large teeth, they gave

up trying. Christopher Middleton
described them in his poem “The Mole”.

It was certainly effective,
for a couple of summers later a busload

of Englishmen, eccentrics and experts
of deep lakes’ monsters. They leaded

and noted. Per Brusling made them coffee,
now an older man who knows something of the lake.

Over Björn Nilsson’s grave, the summer wind blows now.
And I fear that I am the only one who now knows

what really happened.

The expedition returned
deeply convinced that this giant catfish,

not just monstrous and ill-spirited,

is also shrewd, very shrewd
and knows it must hide in dusky depths

whenever someone comes to seek it.

Born in 1965, in Fenghua, Zhejiang, Shu Cai was originally Chen Shucai. He graduated with a BA in French literature from the Department of French Language and Literature, Beijing Foreign Languages University in 1987. From 1990 to 1994, he worked as a diplomat in the Chinese Embassy in Senega and has since been working as a research fellow in Foreign Literature Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He won the Medal of Academic Palm Knight in France in 2008. His publications include such collections of poetry as Solitaire (China, 1997) and Short Poems by Shu Cai (Hong Kong, 2004) and his translations of French literature include A Selection of Poems by Pierre Reverdy (China, 2002), Selected Poems by René Char (China, 2002), Selected Poems by Nine French Poets (Shanghai, 2009).

Ouyang Yu came to Australia in early 1991 and has since published 55 books of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, literary translation and literary criticism in the English and Chinese languages. He also edits Australia’s only Chinese literary journal, Otherland (since 1995). His noted books include his award-winning novel, The Eastern Slope Chronicle (2002), his collections of poetry, Songs of the Last Chinese Poet (1997) and New and Selected Poems (Salt Publishing, 2004), his translations in Chinese, The Female Eunuch (1991) and The Man Who Loved Children (1998), and his book of literary criticism, Chinese in Australian Fiction: 1888-1988 (Cambria Press, 2008). The English Class (Transit Lounge), has been named as one of the Best Books of 2010 in Australian Book Review and The Age as well as the Sydney Morning Herald. His third English novel, Loose: a Wild History, is forthcoming with Wakefield Press in 2011, which, together with his first English novel, The Easter Slope Chronicle, will form the Yellow Town Trilogy. His latest book of poetry, titled, White and Yu, was released in April 2010 by PressPress. He is now based in Melbourne.

Aandaal, ஆண்டாள், an 8^th century Tamil mystic poet followed the poetic conventions of her time by requesting monsoon clouds to act as messenger to her love, the God of the Universe. Besides the literal meaning, each verse embeds parallel and inset meanings that are left to the reader to discover. Simultaneous shifts in meaning dynamize each verse into a literary trompe l’oeil. The following are translations from Naachiar Tirumozhi, a poem of 143 verses that belongs to an erotic genre of spiritual verse, not favoured by conservative Tamil Vaishnavites.

from The Sacred Songs of the Lady 

Song 8: Dark Rain Clouds Be My Messengers

1

Dark cloud roof unfurling beneath
           the roof of the covering sky
Do you herald the coming of my lord Tirumal from high
                    Venkata hill where the bright waterfall plunge?
My tears, luminous, stream between the full
           hills of my breasts
I am not to weep; yet he makes me break my vow,
           how does this honour him?

Vast curly vault veiling
the sky’s   star drizzled dome

Does your darkness hide
his gleaming     darkness    from which shimmer

cascades
into my body’s wet valleys?

I weep, forsaking secrecy.
How could my coursing silver illumine his glory?

My love
vast   star-filled
overcast

in separation.
Still I flow
a stream lightening –struck
leaping

to  lustrate
you
see my glory

5

Monsoon clouds you spread across
           the sky, slash
it raining torrents, you shake the honey-heavy blossoms
           of Vengadam and scatter scented petals.
Go tell the dark lord who killed the demon Hiranya
           ripping him with paws of  fury
that he has robbed me of my bangles.
                     He must return them to me now!

Dark clouds you enlarge in anger, growl and roll
across the skies rending it open

with rain, lightning bolts; you tear
flowers, spill honey, petals clot like blood on earth.

Go to the fiercest lord who plunged his claws in Hiranya roaring,
mane tossing as his bloody paws ripped insides out

tell him: I’ve grown thin with longing, bangles slip from wrists!’
He must heal me with his touch

engorged with anger

nails extending you kill

plunging wrists in

these very hands I seek

to caress me

gather my swollen ripeness in

as

spilling nectar

my body’s blood flower bursts

7

In his avatar as Kurma, submerged tortoise, he supported
           the churning of the star –milk ocean awash
with gems; cosmic treasures bubbled out.  Descend
           clouds, down to the lotus feet of  Vengadam’s lord  and lay
there my surrender. Fragrant saffron paste covers
           my breasts — that must be wipe
on him; he must embrace
           me if only for a day or I waste away.

Splendid the Milky Way spreads
spinning constellations plucked from its depths shimmer

as the great churning begins — before
Time begins.  Lotus eyed Nayarana, the Eternal

One caused this to be. Dive deep clouds and lay
me at his crimsoned feet. Tell him of my

surrender; tell him to wash my body’s scarlet longing
for just today else I die.

Churn
churn
Time’s great ocean, each second, each eternity

churn away my adornments
churn my body’s milk
churn me red

from my ocean
churn out my truest self.
Let me rise to you my love
or let me die

Priya Sarukkai Chabria is a poet, writer and translator. Her publications include Dialogues and Other Poems (2005) reprint (2006) and Not Springtime Yet (2008)

Sarukkai-Chabria edits the website Talking Poetry and edited the anthology 50 Poets 50 Poems. Recipient of Senior Fellowship to Outstanding Artists from the Indian government, she has worked with the Rasa Theory of Aesthetics, co-founded a film society Friends of the Archive and collaborated with classical dancer Malavika Sarukkai. She has been invited to The Writer’s Center, UK; ‘Alphabet City’, Canada; Frankfurt Book Fair etc. and many literary festivals in India.  Her work is published in numerous international journals and websites, and anthologized. She is translating works of eighth century Tamil mystic poet Aandaal; writing a travelogue and a story collection; all three books are to be published in 2011.