Elisabeth Rynell:Nocturnal Conversations

ElisabethRynell, one of Sweden’s most highly regarded womenwriters alive today, was born in Stockholm in 1954.  She has lived in London and traveled overland through Iran,Afghanistan, and Pakistan to India. For decades a resident of Sweden’s remote north (Älvsbyn,Lycksele, Umeå), Rynell now divides her time between Stockholm and Delsbo, a community in Hälsingland,farther south in Norrland.

            Herwriting is lyrical, straightforward or oblique as need be—not a word iswasted—and has been praised for its emotional intensity, openness, andsensuality.  She writes of beautyand terror; over time Rynell’s tales increasinglycross into borderlands of myth and fable. She made her literary debut with a collection of poetry in 1975.  Eleven more books ensued; four areworks of fiction, one is nonfiction, and the other six are poetry, so far.

            Afterthe sudden death of her 32-year-old husband, Elisabeth Rynellbegan writing works of poetry and prose that are still widely read and esteemedin her native Sweden.  The poetrycollection Nattliga samtal(Nocturnal Conversations, 1990) came first; and her breakthrough novel Hohaj waspublished in 1997, bringing her five major Swedish awards. Hohaj has been translated intomultiple languages, including German, Latvian, and Russian.  With a 2013 Translation Fellowship fromthe National Endowment for the Arts, I hope to complete an English translationof the novel within that year.

The back jacket copy for Nocturnal Conversations,from which these poems come, states:   "Elisabeth Rynell’s newcollection of poems is a lamentation, a strong and poignant love song,dedicated to her dead husband." There is no table of contents, but the book is divided into three parts,the heart of which is an extended “lay” or “lamentation”for Ulf, dead at 32.  Rynell uses the Swedish word “kväde” for “poem” or“song” that is used in the Eddas,specifically in Gudrun’s Lay for the dead Sigurd.

            Idiscovered Rynell’s work for myself while serving asthe Swedish-language editor for NewEuropean Poets (Graywolf, 2008). Coming to both Nocturnal Conversations and Hohaj after morethan thirty years of translating great, though primarily male, German andSwedish poets, I believe translating this contemporary woman writer is anessential project, one of superior humane and humanistic worth.

p. 21

That you were here.

That you left. 

That you were here.

And then left. 

That a world existed.            

And then none.

That nothing.

And you were here.

p. 23

We gather, lost,

under small and sparse trees 

We try to hold

one another’s hands now

So afraid in life

Maybe we have trespassed here

and have no rights?

Maybe some greater

atrocity will strike us

tomorrow?

There is something

we are struggling to preserve

So great

the pain

we gather ourselves around it

with lips curled and jaws clenched tight

as if it was the last thing we owned

We are shipwrecked

washed up on a frightening shore

its stones have peculiar forms

p. 24

How shall I birth

you who are not here?

I understand

I must give birth to you

anew

Now I have your photograph

I must make you live

Can no one teach me

what to do?

You know I am

neither sorcerer nor witch

But I am huge with solitude

Almost like a wellspring

or the groundwater

it spurts from

Beloved

your face can no longer be caressed

and often I feel a huge emptiness

which ceases

nowhere

Lead me into that realm

if it exists

where I shall birth you

between my thighs

pp. 26-28

I AM THE ONE who is burning   may I

burn up   whole and new

I wake every

day to my fire  give me today

my daily bonfire  there is

no one here who can cool my brow   as if

only my brow  I’m blazing   I’m aplate

being etched   lower me sizzling into

the spring  water surround me   inme even

water can burn  yes snow even snow

my love you went out

of the room

out

the absence of your hands

is a fire that searches no it rages

over my skin  I burst dry

shrivel to nothing    want is

a huge heat truly huge

and how can I bloom like this

blossom like this   as if the desert

didn’t know what desert is   give me just

one scoop of order   Here in my exploding

universe

Chaos is hunted by Chaos itself

                                                     Will Chaos

find its way out?  I wander

in the room you have left   a lost soul is

a rock by my side   I myself am

crushed stones  twisted iron

unidentified crumbs  the walls

alone are rock-solid  how

ever I throw myself against them   nothing

gives   Be calmmy child

said the Karelian  for there is nothing  oh

consoling sea  thirsting ocean   hereis

a fire that eats me whole con-

suming nothing   a fury without a face   a

hand without fingers   give me some

order   mypresence makes ice burn   I

writhe inside my cage of being   you

are not here and I lie abandoned

on the ground  something dropped   apaper clip

a screw  an inkcartridge with no voice   with

no cry   SOI CAN SCREAM MY SILENCE   thegods

should go white  ecce homo

crawling thing  thetrees

have never been

farther away  their unintentional dignity turned

away from me  take a

deeper draught  life is a fire we have

to burn in  Red is

sorrow  pulsing   My body   my

being   a heartlocked up

in a room that is far too small   if I

could escape  give me space   give me

order

pp. 29-30

There my beloved sits

in a photograph

So I know

that time

is real

real as absence

real as presence

I know

that time

My beloved

sits in a photograph

in my room

and looks at me

through months and

events big

migrations move-

ments

my beloved looks

at me

as if piercing

the room

with love’s

mild eyes

And I know

something of time

and time’s not           

and time’s time

Time’snot like water

trickling between my fingers

Inside the room

time stands like

an invisible piece of furniture

It has no taste

But lives somehow in the walls

Shining its unfathomable smile

through the lamp

Resembles radiation,

strontium’s

Is mostly

a paraphrase

A way of traveling

around something

that is unseen

My beloved no longer remains

in the room

in any of the rooms

but he radiates from the walls

and the ceiling

The floor heaves in hisbreathing