Harry Martinson's "March Evening"

Friends, You Drank Some Darkness is a book of translations of poems by Harry Martinson, Gunnar Ekelof and Thomas Transtromer, a work by Robert Bly that I still enjoy reading. A few pages after the Husmodern article about T.S. Eliot and the Nobel Prize, in 1949 Harry Martinson is featured and so is a selection from his novel. In 1974 Harry Martinson won the Nobel Prize. The article is titled after the selection, which means "The Beard", a chapter from THE ROAD. (The discussion about the beard regards holding men with full beards suspect because they could be concealing their identities.)

SKÄGGET av Harry Martinson

Mildhet, underfundig humör, ömhet mot allt levande präglar Harry Martinsons nya book "Vägen till Klockrike" (Bonniers). Till sitt språkrör gör han luffaren, därför att luffaren sådan han framställer honom är ödmjuk och en som inte vill anpassa sig efter det nutida livets mHarry Mekanisering och industrialisering. I en Veckans bekännelse för Husmodern har Harry Martinson tidigare kritiserat storstadens självtagna rätt att bestämma allt; "storstaden är till nittio procent tvångsmiljö" - Den lilla novell ur "Vägen till Klockrike" som Harry Martinson här ger Husmodern, visar ocksa romantikern hos honom.

Mild, understanding temperament with warmth towards all life imprints Harry Martinson's new book, THE ROAD (English title). For his narrator he creates the tramp so that the tramp as he portrays him will be humble and one who does not wish to adapt himself to the new times' mechanization and industrialization . In one issue's interview for Husmodern Harry Martinson earlier criticized the big city's self-held right to define all. "The big city is ninety-percent coerced smile" - This little novell (part) from THE ROAD which he has given to Husmodern shows also the romanticist in him.

In southern Sweden last weekend there was snow for the early Easter weekend. Today there was snow on the ground, after eleven only some lawns where houses had kept off the early sun did some lace-like snow remain. This poem is a favorite of mine, by Harrry Martinson from the Robert Bly book, Friends, You Drank Some Darkness:

MARSKVÄLL

Vårvinterafton och tö.

Pojkarna ha tänt en snölykta.

För den som for förbi i rasslande kvällståget

skall den stå som ett rött minne i tidernas grå,

ropande, ropande ur risiga skogar i tö.

Och aldrig kom resanden hem,

men i lykta och stund låg hans liv.

MARCH EVENING

Winterspring, nightfall, thawing.

Boys have lit a candle in a snowball house.

For the man in the evening train that rattles past,

it is a red memory surrounded by gray time,

calling, calling, out of stark woods just waking up.

And the man who was traveling never got home,

his life stayed behind, held by that lantern and that hour.

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