A memorable night

Last night, I read about Karin Boye, a greatest women Swedish poet, novel as well as short story writer. Much of her works deal with the themes of life, death and desolation. She was a poetic genius who liberated herself through her works. “Yes, of course it hurts’ is the most famous works that brought huge success in her life outside Sweden.

What has inspired me about her poetry is that she held quite modernistic philosophy about life. Even after 70 years of her death, her views are still relevant. She was influenced by Buddhism. Among her greatest works I liked these two:

A BUDDHIST FANTASY

Unlocked is the world's copper gate.
High in its gate-vault here I stand,
and what I see is infinitely great,
and no sight is so without end.

However deep I look, however far,
my gaze receives no help beneath.
All that I know exists no more -
not great, not small - not life, not death.

One single step on pathways free,
and for me all return is closed...
Why do you quake? Up, follow me!
For the universe's copper gate is forced!

INWARDS

My God
and my truth
I saw
in a strange hour.
People's words
and commands were silent.
Good and evil
my soul forgot.
My God
and my truth
I drank
in the hour of my angxiety.

My God
was salt darkness,
my truth
hard metal.
Deeply I shook.
Naked I stood,
washed by waves
of cold truth,
cold, strong,
contemptuous truth -
my Truth
and my God.


Finally, I’d like to thank Sara for introducing such a wonderful poet to me.
Sincerely,
Mousumi

Back from holiday, poetry bingo, books

Hello everyone

Well it has been some confusing days in many ways. Is that good or is it bad? Well I don´t know but I hope it will come out some good of it in the end :-).

"Happiness is for close friends.

To have close friends is happiness.

Close friends,

one of the most important thing in the world." (MG)

This Monday Sara came back from her holiday in Austria. Welcome back Sara! It´s nice to have you around again, it´s not so quiet any longer. As she has told us she had a really nice time down there with her boyfriend Christof and some other relatives to him. Hopefully we will see some pictures also. Sara, I hope we will?

Her first thing to prepare for was the Poetry Bingo up in Pershyttan, a couple kilometres from here. It was Sara and My reading poetry.

My reading poetry and Sara is waiting for her turn to do the same thing.

The people first had to write some words (that they later crossed over) in a kind of grid system (bingo badge). It was words that they could hear in the poetry that Sara and My read (poetry that they had written). They really had to pay attention! I actually asked John first if he would go up there but first he was not to (so) keen on it. But then Sara phoned and was a bit concerned that it were so few people up there, it was actually raining a bit. But she manage to persuade John to drive up there and I in the "speed" to the bus catch Jason and told him to come with us :-)). Jason is one of Marianne's sons.

The Bingo grid (badge).

It was actually pity that it was bad weather (not funny at all), if it hadn't been like that then I think it had been some more people up at that event. It was a new experience for me to go to a Poetry Bingo! But a good experience and nice :-)). I had my hands kind of full any way with the film camera, filming the whole thing. It might be a movie that Sara will put up on YouTube (Poetry Bingo in Pershyttan) in time, when it´s finished, it needs to be edited I think.

Here me filming in the rain!

And I also right now doing some setting on two Spanish books, well two books by authors from Latin America. It´s a bit hard to do as I can´t the language. I might have to learn Spanish in the end! But with some help from Melvin that is actually the one that is mentoring these guys it goes just fine. I have kind of sorting it out rather well I think :-)), so far I shall say. I hope that I will have at least one of the books ready and clear for the printing in the end of this week. So keep your fingers crossed out there so I managed to do this :-)). This is important with these two books because Marianne and Melvin plus Niklas will go to Latin America in the end/middle of August and they shall have some examples of the books with them.

Phuu now I have done my blog for this week, this confusing week!

Mari

Poetry and other stuff

Well since last time I have done a lot of things and I´m in a better mood too.
As you know we have been to Trollhättan and the poetry festival. And it was really a nice occasion in many ways, we also meet Sara's friends and had a nice evening with them. Meeting some of our young authors was nice and they read their poems in an admirable way. They was really nice specially Jennifer who opened the whole festival, she is so young and did it so well, didn´t look nervous at all. And our own Sara who released her poetry book, I´m so proud of her. A bit because her book was the first one I was involved in :-)). She and My did a superb perfomance. Well done Sara and My!

Sara and My in teamwork.

And I actually filmed the whole thing, my second time filming! It is really a new experience to me and I kind of liking it. And as usual John took some nice photographs both odd ones and nice ones. He has a tendency to take pictures of people´s backs :-)).

Me filming the whole thing.

We actually have released two new books, Sara's and Tove's. Tove was not with us at the poetry festival but she will join Sara this weekend to do something in Lysekil.

Oh tomorrow we will have a kind of fire here. Here in Sweden we "May fire". So I have helped John and Steinar to collect some wood for it, it is nice to work with your body sometimes and not just sitting and do things on the computer. Niklas with Steinar and his friends are going to Örebro to set on the big "May fire" at the castle with arrows ??!! How on earth they are able to do that I don´t know. It will be interesting to se it, they shall do the same thing here on "our" fire.

Ohh today we had an marketing meeting. It was nice and I discovered that I´m thinking a bit different then the rest of the Bombadil staff. I´m thinking first in pictures and not in words and headlines. I´m so used to think on pictures first and the words come after a short time or as I said: the words will come fast when I´m upset, sad, angry or irritated on something. But I will try to learn to do in the other way :-)), it will probably take some time.

have a nice evening
Mari

Shaking kneecaps and poetry all night long.

Last weekend was a weekend full of poetry, creativity and nervousness.

So at last the 25th of april had appeared and The Poetryfestival in Trollhättan was a fact. We were four Bombadilians reading poetry and we were the ones opening the festival on saturday afternoon. First Bombadilian out was Jennifer Vidovic, an extremly talanted 13 year old who read a few of her poems and a short section from here collection of short stories that is under progress as we speak. She was so brave getting up on stage as the very first poet of the entire festival! When she was up there reading poetry like she hasn´t been doing anything else but reading poetry out loud, I was about to wet myself. I did not believe that I could get so tremendously nervous! Second Bombadilian out was Johanna Hansson who is getting her collection of poetry published at Bombadil Publishing within a near future, which is having a kind of scrap book theme. Cool! Johanna did also work the stage properly and did a great job reading her texts!

Then it was me and My, luckily, I wasn´t on my own. And no I don´t mean me, my and I or something silly like that, "My" is actually a Swedish name. My is an performance artist and have been reading my poetry before, so we figured; why not experiment a bit and do some reading together?! It all turned out very well, and apparently you couldn´t see my shaking kneecaps from the audience, well at least that´s what my mother told me. I haven´t decided whether I trust her or not, not yet. Last Bombadilian on stage was Kristoffer Hedberg (http://www.kristofferhedberg.se/) who is not "just" publishing his poetry at Bombadil Publishing this coming autumn but is probably more known for his music. Just couple of weeks ago he finished the recording of his third solo album. Check his website out!

After Bombadil Publishing All-Stars had done their part the Poetryfestival continued and offered lots of good, worse and brilliant poetry, texts with completely different topics and tone. The Swedish band Detektivbyrån finished off by midnight, and they really did an exceptional live performance!

So all in all the Poetry festival was a success and apparently Bombadil Publishing has already been invited to next years festival in Trollhättan, groovy!

over&out
Your Monday blogger Sara

Poetry

This weekend we are off to Trollhättan - the cradle of Bombadil Publishing - to attend the poetry festival. That in itself is really nice, but best of all, I think, is that one of "my" authors, who is also our very own Sara, will have her book release there. She has worked very hard on it, and it is the first poetry collection that I have worked with. We named it challenge poetry, because it challenges the mind: it is not just about pretty words, it is about opening a door into the very soul of the writer, challenging the readers as well as the author. There is something very beautiful about being invited into somebody's inner sphere of emotions and feelings and I think I am as excited as Sara about her book release. It will be an exciting day for us both!

Obsessed about it.

Today it´s all about obsessions. I think I´ve listened to the same song about 25 times, and it´s just 14.30, now that´s a bit obsessed! Plus it´s Monday, which means that I´m as usual a bit tired from getting up early in order to drive my car for 3 hours to get here. Me+tired is often not a good combination, I tend to get a bit cranky and high maintenance in general, but there is a couple of tricks one can pull to raise my mood a bit.... namely: food!!! I guess it´s all about balance, lack of energy in terms of not sleeping enough will be replaced with energy through FOOD. And coffee of course. So I guess I´m obsessing about food as well. Food and Fleetwood Mac. Not a bad combination at all actually. Silver Springs was the song anyway, by Fleetwood Mac. Tune indeed.




Fleetwood Mac - Rumours - Silver Springs

And I can´t stop thinking about the Poetry festival that Bombadil Publishing is attending on Saturday. I will be reading a few poems myself which is the result of not being able to take the Poetry festival off of my mind. We are 4 authors from Bombadil and on official festival leflets we are refered to as The Bombadil Publishing All Stars, neat! So I guess that´s being a bit obsessive too.

It´s nice weather anyway, on a Monday which I´m very suprised and impressed about, spring is here for real, at last. Welcome, please stay forever. And that´s all I have to say about that.

Over&Out

/Your Monday blogger Sara

Monday, glorious Monday!

Typical Monday today, greyish, soppy weather. The air tastes a bit like dust for some reason and the sun is refusing to come out. As usual I´ve been up a bit to early to drive up to Gyttorp from my hometown Trollhättan. The only thing that is a bit unusual is the fact that my brother came with me this mornong! His name is Erik and has just turned 15, he will spend the week with the Bombadil staff to do his work practice. He has already managed to re-do the layout of the Swedish startpage on the website and got himself a Bombadil hoodie. Not bad, I would say. As his mentor I intend to make him work, a lot. At least one power point presentation and som filming for our shorts. Since we only speak English this is a great opportunity for him to practice speaking English, he is already really brilliant and according to our dear mother, his spelling is better in English than Swedish...Interesting indeed.

On wednesday parts of the Bombadilian team is going to a college in Kinna (south of Sweden) to be interviewed by the students, well exciting!! Gonna be lots of fun to get away from the computer and meet some interested youth.

Another great thing that is happening right now is the preparations of World book day! We will have some different activities during this day and the main thing in Sweden is the "Library-book" as I have chosen to call it. The thought is to get the Swedish libraries more interactive, so we have decided to encourage people to send submissions to Bombadil: poems, novels, short stories etc. The topic is "Me&books" and you will submit through your local library, and then we will Publish the swedish "library-book". The whole event is finishing on the 23rd of April on world book day. So yeah, we've got some great things coming up. During the spring we will be visiting bookshops, poetry festivals etc. so stay tuned!

All for now,
Yours truly
Monday blogger Sara