Tomas Tranströmer – Empires, Cannibals, and Magic Fish Bones

April 30, 2019

A Walk After Goulash With Brillat-Savarin, Blackpink, Walt Whitman And Tomas Tranströmer.

After a meal, a walk helps aid digestion, at least, that’s what I’ve been told repeatingly, and as Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin writes, ‘Man lives not on what he eats, but on what he digests,’ says an old proverb. We must therefore digest to live: rich and poor, king and shepherd are equal in the face of … Continue reading A Walk After Goulash With Brillat-Savarin, Blackpink, Walt Whitman And Tomas Tranströmer.

November 6, 2018

A Cup Of Coffee While Translating Tomas Gösta Tranströmer . . . Well, Not All Of Him, Just One Poem And An Appearance By Bob Dylan.

My days begin with coffee. For close to forty years, my days begin with coffee. In a previous life, I’m sure I frequented London Coffeehouses of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Am I dependent on coffee? Yes, yes I am. And yes, since I drink coffee I am cosmopolitan, I believe in the free flow … Continue reading A Cup Of Coffee While Translating Tomas Gösta Tranströmer . . . Well, Not All Of Him, Just One Poem And An Appearance By Bob Dylan.

October 23, 2018

Arriving In Sweden.

Around 12:30 pm on Monday, October 22 I walk out of the Stockholm Arlanda airport and into the arms of Gabriela and Demian and my new life in Sweden. Fifty-five years living in the States, the last thirty years in Houston, and now I have “Permanent Resident Status” to live with wife and son a … Continue reading Arriving In Sweden.

August 21, 2016

Broth Of A Forest Floor: Walking On Storön.

Midsummer in the Stockholm Archipelago and I’ve finally become accustomed to falling asleep in daylight. Important to blanket windows, shut eyes tightly, and dream about water and land washing, breaking each other. It’s about four in the morning when I wake to light and silhouette, and what can I do, emerging colors call me out … Continue reading Broth Of A Forest Floor: Walking On Storön.

August 7, 2016

There’s An Island In The Baltic Sea

After a forty-five minute bus ride out of Stockholm, the road ends at Stavsnäs with a pier jutting out into the water, pointing toward an archipelago, a labyrinth of islands we’ll navigate on our way to a greeting and hospitality. This is Tomas Tranströmer’s realm as translated into another island language by Robin Fulton, a place of sky … Continue reading There’s An Island In The Baltic Sea

June 19, 2016February 15, 2019

A Simple Meal In Stockholm

It’s the first poem I read by Tomas Tranströmer. My teacher at Wayne State University, Edward Hirsch suggested Tranströmer’s lyric sweep of history would appeal to my eye for detail and a poetic line setting deep within a panoramic view of space and time. Baltics (ÖSTERSJÖAR) a slim collection of poems casting a haunted eye … Continue reading A Simple Meal In Stockholm

June 15, 2016

Night Thoughts For North Carolina

It’s a dinner party. Wine passed down the table. Angels have appeared at Abraham and Sarah’s door, and as good hosts the old couple provide food and drink. And the LORD appeared unto him by the terebinths of Mamre, as he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day; and he lifted … Continue reading Night Thoughts For North Carolina

November 25, 2014

There Will Be Thanksgiving!

The Thanksgiving Turkey has arrived! Last night Greenling delivered a Bourbon Red Heritage, Free Range Turkey from Richardson Farms. Now, that’s a turkey! Bearing reddish plumage and first bred in Bourbon County, Kentucky the Bourbon Red sat on many a Thanksgiving table from the last decades of the nineteenth century all the way to World … Continue reading There Will Be Thanksgiving!