BLOG OF THE WEEK ~ AN UPDATE WITH BJORN RUDBERG

Today, my friends, we are visiting Sweden, to chat with our friend and fellow poet Bjorn Rudberg, who writes at Bjorn Rudberg's Writings, and is so well-known to us as the admin at  dVerse Poets Pub, a wonderful venue for poets.  Let's see what he is up to these days. I suspect he is getting ready to disappear into the wilderness, as he does from time to time, so we'll catch him before he vanishes.

Sherry: Bjorn, I'm so happy to be chatting with you. Thank you for taking the time. Your interview was in 2014, and since then we have many new members. Would you like to tell us a bit about where you live, and your on-going adventures in the natural world? I know you and your wife get out into wilderness at every opportunity.

Bjorn: Well Sherry, I still live just outside Stockholm, Sweden. Our pink house lies partly secluded by oaks and birch trees, we have no lawns but a meadow; a ten minutes' walk takes us to a bay of the Baltic Sea, where we can skate in winter or kayak in summer.  

Sherry: What a gorgeous location!

Bjorn: Our vacations mostly take us north, in the winter to ski, and in summer to hike in the wilderness. That’s when we disconnect from the network, and live in a tent or in small cottages. This year we will go to the very north part of Sweden, where we will be hiking areas we’ve never been to. I guess it will be both familiar and new at the same time.

Sherry: It sounds wonderful, Bjorn. You'll be right off the grid. A time to rest and replenish.

Bjorn: Hiking with everything on your back is something that brings out the essence of life, how little you need and how much you miss in life by sitting in front of a screen.

When we hike on skiis in winter, we sleep in cabins where there is no electricity but plenty of wood and gas to cook on, but in summer we try to sleep in a tent, which gives us the freedom to sleep wherever we want. (Yes, in Sweden and Norway this is perfectly allowed almost everywhere.) To sleep close to a stream is something I long for every day through the rest of the year.

Last year we saw something that will stay in our memory forever. Right by the path there was a den of polar fox with cubs. And we sat down for an hour just watching the pups playing. Alas, they were too far away, so I have no pictures to share.

Sherry:  How wonderful that must have been. Enchanting.

Bjorn: You also meet people in another way. If you spend your night in a cabin, you sit down and talk to people that you would normally not talk to, and people come from all over the world to hike these mountains, so you can sit there just collecting stories. If you are sleeping in a tent, you get the chance to enjoy solitary sounds and maybe just sit in the evening sun reading. In summer, it never gets dark, so if you prefer to walk by night it's perfectly possible.

In winter, we skate on the bay, and last winter it was perfect conditions. Here is a youtube clip I captured, of my wife skating on perfect ice with just a thin sheet of water on top.

  


Sherry: How absolutely beautiful! It looks like she is skating in the sky! Your outdoors adventures must sustain you both all year. 

Bjorn, would you give us a quick snapshot of your writing journey? You began with Twitter, as I recall.

Bjorn: Yes I did indeed start to write on twitter, wordsmithing in 140 characters, and was pulled into blogging by a collaboration between twitter friends. Gradually, I got engaged writing poetry and flash-fiction through various prompts. For me, it has been like an ongoing workshop, but in 2014 I decided to take it one step further by enrolling in a course at the open university on creative writing. 

This led me to doing a collaborative book with other local writers where each wrote one short story. The book was published as 
“Keyhole Stories”, (available at Amazon here), and we are now working on our second project. I think therefore my poetry has been influenced into writing more and more narrative poetry. When I started, it was more haiku and micropoetry.

Sherry: How wonderful to collaborate on a project like this! I am happy to hear a second book is on the way. Congratulations, Bjorn. What direction is your writing taking these days? I am also wondering, as the admin at dVerse Poets Pub, such a busy place, if you still find enough time to write? Do you have a writing routine, or do you just write whenever you find some spare moments? 

Bjorn: I think that I’m a pretty quick writer normally; ideas form quickly and I follow some instinct in sound and metaphor that mostly makes sense to me. This means that many of my ideas are pretty raw, and I would love to have the patience to edit and make something more complete. I think my poetry has turned a little bit more surreal, and I try to work with original metaphors a lot. I used to write a lot in form, and still do, but I have begun to write more and more free-verse (though always trying to keep it within a metered frame).  

I write at spare moments, but usually I reserve a couple of hours each evening to read and write. Especially those three evenings per week when we have pub-nights at dVerse. I feel a little tied to my computer (though I sit with a laptop on my knee writing and reading). I have plenty of different devices to use so I always have something with me to write and read. Somehow I would like to write a collection of poems soon, but it’s hard to find the time to do publishing.

Sherry: Your fans are waiting eagerly for that book, Bjorn. I hope you do find some time. You will find, once you start, it gathers momentum, and doesn't take as long as you might expect.  Would you like to favor us with three of your poems? And tell us a bit about each one?

Bjorn: One topic that has been both hard to write, but also so soothing, is the rapid decline of my mother into dementia. A year ago she was taken to a retirement home, and now she can no longer walk or talk. But the period leading up to it was terrible as well. I know that many others suffer from the same, but it was nothing I could prepare myself for.

Sherry: No, one can never prepare for such a loss, Bjorn. I am so sorry. I have felt the depth of emotion in poems you have written about your mother. Let's have a look at two of them. The first is one I made note of when you first posted it. One of your finest, my friend.

Bjorn: The first is a glosa based on four lines from a poem by Tomas Tranströmer:

Her words were avenues

One can still go slowly on skis in the winter sun

through brush where a few leaves hang on.

They resemble pages torn from old telephone directories.

Names swallowed by the cold

(Tomas Tranströmer, After a death)

My love was weightless, numbly dense

clinging like an oak-leaf lastly left

my love was smell of soil,

it was the beating sense of warmth, umbilical

reflected in the snow. Afterwards

one’s words were emptied, spilled and overdone

drenched in gravy, tepid, tied.

My love was willow-bending winds across the bay

autumn rushes, but in races never won

one can still go slowly on skis in the winter sun

recalling morning moments; soliloquy

converging dreams, those moments when I knew

exactly how she could explain, in sequences.

Her words were avenues leading up to doors

of mansions, houses she had built.

But she lost directions; gone

were roads; walls a-crumbling, ivy in her eyes.

And though my love was strong

she searched, slowly pulled, she was drawn

through brush where a few leaves hang on.

Time was yarn, nested skeins of wool

unwritten letters, thoughts and confirmations,

the taste of stamps and envelopes.

My love is dried-up ink inside my fountain-pen,

it’s the silence of a fading memory.

It’s the sepia of photographs, it’s the sound of trains

switches, steam, and the smoke from kilns,

and she still recalls her childhood better.

When days are colder, soon added to a century.

They resemble pages torn from old telephone directories.

In the dappled light, October sun

her hand looks small, resting on the cane

“I can drive you home”, she says

still thinking that her father’s car, is parked

not yet rust, still waiting just beyond

underneath the birches, dressed in gold.

And she tells me of her friends, imagined

she asks me why her mother never calls.

When parents fade they are like old

names swallowed by the cold.

Sherry: Bjorn, this is exquisite, so moving and beautiful. I especially admire "my love was willow-bending winds across the bay". This poem is a meditation upon love, loss and memory. Very fine work, and deeply felt. Thank you for sharing this. 

Bjorn: The other is more recent, looking back on those years when she gradually decayed. There were early warning signs, but there were things we never dared to mention. Dementia was our elephant in the room. The sentence of boiling frogs refers to the story that, if you put a frog in cold water that you gradually heat up, it will let itself be cooked.

The elephant was named too late

The fading started years ago, your wit

that withered and in search for words.

We were frustrated, but you travelled

and made friends, you saw China and

Galapagos, you came and went, and

called us when our time was scarce.

We should have named the elephant

but never dared, until it was too late.

Then the calls that came, police, or

neighbors, all. They said you left and

couldn’t find your way. There were

stories you invented of a life we knew

you never had, of siblings, houses,

invented men. You wondered when

your parents died, that’s when we

named the elephant: dementia.

It’s strange how long we let it slip

and never mourned; the tears that

hasn’t trickled yet. Acceptance is like

boiling frogs, it’s sighs at night, too late.

A sadness more like fog than rain.

Once your strength was infinite, you

handled axes, chainsaws and your

hands created pottery and weaved

the comfort of my youth. It wasn’t

easy, with all the houses and our

things and I can see myself in your

disgust for cleaning.

The elephant has not yet claimed you

but your fading comes in noiseless

steps, There is acceptance that you’ve

left and we your children have prepared

a life, you almost left. We will walk ahead

and I can always touch your hands

that stays in pottery you left behind.

Sherry: "A sadness more like fog than rain." And "your fading comes in noiseless steps." Your words help us feel the distance your mother has traveled from you, though still right here. Comforting to think of still being able to touch her hands in the pottery she will leave behind. Your poems are beautiful tributes to who your mother was, Bjorn.

Bjorn: As I typically write poetry that is painful and dark to read and to write, I wanted to share something with more love and passion. When I wrote this I said “it’s almost a love poem”, but I think it shows my love for writing in meter, and to use contrasting images. Love and passion deserve to be painted in both bright and dark colors.

To find what’s sought

In frantic summer urge, insane with bloom

when teared in drizzle, hand in hand we meet

this evening, kissed in tangerine, not gloom

your hair is wilderness, your eyes not sweet

but hard, resolved to challenge storms, to fight

the burdens laid in layers, greed of darkness, dread

of airless rooms and scent of mildew nights.

You’re flint and feathers, and your breath is red.

We cross the river, walk on glass, and spilled

as ink on parchment, words unwritten, blotched

our tears are grains of sand, it’s time to still

the night, to settle scores with stars and watch

our dreams to steady into weightless thoughts

It’s time to borrow time, to find what’s sought.

Sherry: Wow! This is so beautiful. I especially love "your hair is wilderness" and "you're flint and feathers". Gorgeous writing! Thank you for sharing these beautiful poems!

Besides writing, and exploring the wild places, what other things might we find you doing in your free time?

Bjorn: I enjoy to do a bit of photography, go to concerts and I actually enjoy cooking as well. We recently bought a slow-cooker that injected more fun into my cooking. I would love to have more time to read, but I think that's a price to pay for writing.

Sherry: And we are happy you make that choice, my friend! Loving the wild lands as you do, what are your thoughts and concerns about the environment? Is Sweden more forward-thinking than North America, in terms of switching to clean energy and reducing emissions?  How do you think your countrymen view North America’s slowness – and resistance to -   grappling with these issues?

Bjorn: I do think that numbers say a lot. We do need energy to keep houses warm, we need it for transportation, but what bugs me is unnecessary waste. Sweden has many contradictions with a high awareness, but also a love for big cars, and houses larger than we need (that includes me, by the way). I sometimes envy North America, because you can do so much without sacrificing a lot. Compare, for instance, the windows we have compared to yours, and you will see that many times you are burning fuel to heat up the outside instead of the inside of houses.  

I am actually positive that with good engineering we can take the world to a cleaner place, and if you are honest with yourself you see that in many places the world has become cleaner as well. We need positive news to be able to face the challenges we have. Remembering the noxious fumes of my youth, the acid rain and heavy metals in the lakes, I think we can overcome, if there is just a political will to change things.

Sherry: It is certainly doable. The political will is an important component and I suppose we, at the grassroots level, have to make our voices heard to influence that.

Bjorn, we’d like to thank you for the wonderful job you are doing, keeping dVerse running, along with your team.  You and your staff are providing a wonderful venue for poets, and I know that takes a lot of time and effort, out of the goodness of your heart,  for the love of poetry.

Bjorn: It was a privilege to take up that baton, and I know that many  poets visit many poetry sites. I love the creativity that stems from all the different intersecting communities.

Sherry: The poetry blogosphere is something I am most grateful for, in my slowing-down years.  Is there anything you’d like to say to Poets United, my friend?

Bjorn: One thing that I said in my last interview, that I would like to emphasize even more, is that to be able to write good poetry you have to read even more, and the ability to understand and show appreciation on what you like with a poem is also good. If you ever get into a community where you actually point out improvements, you should thank yourself; to me it’s a wonderful gift to also point out what can be improved (though I do not dare to do it myself). I see poetry to be much more about collaboration than anything else. Whenever you visit, read, or find something new, that might not even have been intended, it's pure magic, I think.

Sherry:  Yes, it is pure magic, a pond we dip our toes into daily, with delight.

Thank you, Bjorn, for sharing your wonderful work, and your thoughts with us today. And when you are ready to launch your first collection of poems, do come back and we will feature it here!

Wasn't this wonderful, my friends? Such deep and beautiful sharing of life, love and wilderness. Do come back and see who we talk to next. Who knows? It might be you!