Translator's Note

After reading two of his poetry books which I bought from used book stores in Denmark, I contacted Rolf Gjedsted in early 2022, with an eye towards translating his writing. He and I met at his home in Nyhavn, Copenhagen that May. After a tour of the restaurant on the first floor of his building, which was decorated with Rolf’s large, colorful abstract paintings, we sat by the canal among the tourists and cafes. I shared a few sample translations I had done, and he gave me a bag with copies of what he thought were his ten best poetry collections, all now out of print. We shared not just similar interests in music, eastern philosophy, and poetry, but we also had a dear common acquaintance in the recently deceased Danish national poet, Benny Andersen. We discussed other Danish writers that we had known, and he revealed to me what he had learned was the secret to writing poetry: musicality. Rolf was also a translator, bringing into Danish the poetry of Baudelaire, Poe, and Rimbaud. It was a shock to learn that just two months after meeting him, Rolf died suddenly in July, 2022. 

It is an unusual and lengthy process, reading what grew to become fifteen poetry collections, then selecting what I feel are the best poems from each volume. As I read each poem, I am listening for a deep voice, uncommon truth, fantastic description, compassionate treatment of human episodes, a dense craft that follows from first to last lines. I ask a lot of a poem. But then, it will also ask a lot of me in return. As I translate them, I attempt to recreate each poem as I feel Rolf would have written them, if he had written in English. I try to maintain the same register, flow, craft, and musicality. I hope to disappear, that my translations become a window through which the original is read with as little distortion as possible.

The first poem, Milk and Insanity, engaged me from the first words with its strong voice, its unusual setting, and its subtle conflicts. I find this persona poem totally convincing, as it juxtaposes the general state of the world ‘awash in insanity’ with the specifics of the matchstick, the medicine, the eggs, and, of course, the milk.

The second poem won me over with its attempt to describe the impossible – how our relationships with everything are both outward and inward simultaneously. An ambitious poem that reminds me how all things in my life are happening inside my brain, though I am used to sensing them outside of myself, ever since I can remember.

I hope readers enjoy these poems, and can appreciate the voice that wrote them forty to fifty years ago, through the translation.

Unfortunately, Rolf will not see his work appear in translation. This feels bittersweet to me, as I know it would have made him happy, to see his writing be read by audiences far from Denmark.

I appreciate partnering with the editors at Exchanges, so that Rolf’s voice continues to reach readers with its message of deep awareness, living with paradox, and the musicality of language.

Michael Favala Goldman

In the Classroom