Leslie-Ann Beldamme: "The One I Love"

I have just re-purposed my Tumblr blog with a focus on Danish writers and artists, and started translating little pieces of prose and poetry for that. This work pleases me a good deal, and who knows what collections it might lead to...

The work involves finding cool Danish, or - in a pinch - Scandinavian birthdays, and every now and then I stumble over a name that is vaguely familiar, but which I can't quite place. This happened yesterday when I was researching the March 15 birthdays. "Anna Castberg? Who was she, again?"

Well, as it turns out, Anna Castberg is mainly remembered in Denmark for a moment of infamy when she was caught lying on her resumé for the job as Museum Director at the recently built Arken museum - a lovely edifice on the coast just outside Copenhagen, which specializes in Contemporary art.

Ms Castberg was pre-eminently qualified for the job as Director with her PhD in Art History and extensive museum experience, and she was hired in 1993 to build up the collection and launch the new museum in 1996.

Soon, however, the Danish newspapers took a keen interest in the budgets for the new museum which seemed rather out of control, and a bit of digging soon revealed that Castberg didn't really have a degree of any sorts and didn't actually attend any of the universities she claimed to have gone to. She also hadn't really worked for the institutions she had listed on her resumé as prior experience. This was not a new pattern, in fact. When looking for work in Britain, she claimed to have a Danish degree, and vice versa...

She did manage to stick around to launch the museum, which soon became an attractive destination for culture tourism and started putting itself on the map in art circles. However, a few months after the opening she was let go, and promptly vanished from the public view... She seems to have moved back to Britain, and is currently listed as a practicing psychotherapist. I'm not sure she has any formal degree or training as such in that field, either - but hey, that has never stopped her before...

At least two Danish novels and one play have been inspired by the Anna Castberg affair. I haven't read or seen any of them, but you can easily find them if you can read Danish. Look for Leif Davidsen's Lime's Billede, or Ole Hyltoft's Mordet på Museet...

So, why am I blogging about Anna Castberg, you might ask... Well, apart from her bold behavior, which I can't help but admire, having worked myself in a business where fraud is rampant but rarely this flamboyant, she did have one true item on her CV that I am particularly interested in.

Cue Leslie-Ann Beldamme, the little-known English folk-singer who at the age of 17 got a contract with Decca and recorded a lovely 7" single with the songs "The One I Love" (R.E.M. were not that original...) as the B-side and "The Rose of Loneliness" as the A-side. Leslie-Ann was of course none other than Holbæk-born Anna Castberg.

At this point in time only the B-side - which according to the label was penned by Leslie-Ann herself, but who knows? - is available on YouTube. I have not heard the A-side which is credited to Mikis Theodorakis, and titled in parenthesis "Sirtaki song", which would indicate it used the melody from the film, Zorba the Greek that was a huge hit in 1964. The other writing credit on that track is for "Jeffery" - maybe an English lyricist? This track also has an arranger credit to Reg Guest (known for his work with The Walker Brothers, Dusty Springfield, and others).

I advise you to listen to "The One I Love" - it is really lovely and very much of its time what with Judy Collins and Joni Mitchell beginning to make a mark for themselves. The vocals are pure, somewhat vibrato-laden, and the melody is simple but catchy in its arrangement for acoustic guitar, bass, a touch of vibraphone and tastefully wire-brushed drums...

I suppose Decca thought - with some justification - they might have found a true English rose to rival the Americans in this fledgling market for folky, female singer-songwriters...

However, the single flopped pretty badly, selling only 9.000 copies, and Leslie-Ann never seems to have recorded again - at least not under that name. There is something very endearing about the whole construction of this young girl - the obvious, but clumsy allegorical last name (riffing on the French "Belle Dame" - 'beautiful lady' and her step-father's real name, Beldam), and the both demure and sexy picture of the brunette on the sleeve.

Image engineering was not as blatant in the 1960s as it later became in the music industry and commercial realms - but it certainly did exist. Also, one cannot help but think what would have happened, had Leslie-Ann become the next singing sensation for Decca. Would she still have ended up a fraud, infamous in an entire nation? Or would she have ended up as revered as the late, great Sandy Denny, born one year before Ms Castberg??

The Decca single is available on Discogs and other re-sell sites for a pretty hefty price - 50 GBP on eBay, or €150 on Discogs.

Happy 71st to Ms Castberg!

Translating Poetry, 10 Years After

Recently I've begun translating poetry again. This current spate comes 10 years after the last slew of translations I published on this blog in 2009. Seems like yesterday...

Today's poems are all translated from Danish, and they represent three generations of writers - with poems appearing originally in the 1920s, '50s and '80s...

The first poem is by Nis Petersen - from Nattens Pibere, his debut collection from 1926. The strange title refers to the bats he observed and and heard squeaking at night in a local cemetery.

The poem I chose for translation, "When the Cherry Trees Are Blooming", is a witchy celebration of nature's temptations. I don't usually do rhyme-driven poems, but I had a lot of fun with this one.

Nis Petersen was a somewhat tragic figure, who spent many wasted years in his youth, drinking and living as a vagabond because he couldn't hold down a job. He traveled extensively and spent substantial time in Ireland and the Faroe Islands - both locations inspiring poems and novels. His main fame comes from his 1931 historical novel, Sandalmagernes Gade, which is set in classical Rome.

He eventually settled down in the middle of Jutland and stopped drinking after a rehab stay in Sweden. However, his life was cut short by cancer and he died before turning 50, on March 9, 1943...

The second poet I've been working with turns 91 today. Knud Sørensen is a local poet residing on Mors, the island just across from National Park Thy, where I am currently living. Before retiring 35 years ago, Knud Sørensen worked as a surveyor alongside his writing work, and the sense of place and spirit of the land is acute in his writing. He had his debut as a poet in the classic Danish poetry journal, Hvedekorn (Grains of Wheat) which is still going strong.

 Below is one of his early Hvedekorn poems, “Morning”, which I have recently translated…

The final translation I'm presenting today is from the work of the quintessential New Wave post-punk poetic voice in Denmark, Michael Strunge, who died by suicide on March 9, 1986.

Posthumously, Strunge became the most popular poet in Denmark since Klaus Rifbjerg - and in contrast to the two first poets I've mentioned, Strunge was very much an urban voice in Danish poetry. Here is my new translation of his 1984 poem, "When we're asleep" from his collection Armed with Wings...


Note how in the poem the voice of the speaker originates from an apartment in the city and ends up encompassing all of the surrounding landscape. Strunge is far from the first poet to compare the hearts of lovers to a pair of birds - in fact Nis Petersen did exactly that in one of the poems in Nattens Pibere, where he wrote:

"Men tænk, om to mennesker vågnede midt

om natten og glemte, hvad mit var og dit

og sang — bare sang som hr. Kvirrevit

og fru Kvirrevit

kvirrevit!

vit!"

"Imagine two humans waking up one night,
Forgetting what was mine and what was yours
and sang — just sang like Mr. Chip-Chirip
and Mrs. Chip-Chirip:
Chip-chirip!
Chip!"

I'm not suggesting a direct intertextuality between the two misfit poets here, but for sure a commonality of theme and imagery.

As far as I can tell none of these Danish poets from three different generations have been translated into English before. I hope some will enjoy their work.