Proper Tales Press 40th anniversary essay: Dag T. Straumsvåg

TRANSPORTER

            in memory of Nelson Ball (1942—2019)

For forty years the Norwegian government has suspected that Proper Tales is not a press, but an extraterrestial being, a descendant of the Greek soldier Propertalis (presumed lost in space, 747 BC), and a possible threat to national security. Numerous investigations have been conducted, but nothing conclusive ever came of it. Now most people do believe that Proper Tales is in fact a press, founded and run by Stuart Ross. And we do know that Gary Barwin once saw Stuart Ross on a bus. I myself once saw a bus inside Stuart Ross, heading for the Trondheim Airport, Værnes. His successful exchange program for penguins and nuns in the 70s is well documented. My first encounter with him occured five years ago in a village on the Amazon river, his houseboat drifting toward shore in the misty dawn, Stuart leaning against the mast, reading Ring Pulls Through the Ages by Mackenzie Crook. “Hello!” he said, “do you know where I can get a cup of coffee around here?” “Certainly,” I said, “please come with me.” And as we walked through the village to the café, passing huts and houses where people were still asleep, I saw the Trondheim bus flickering inside his chest; hundreds of passengers on board, boll weevils, sparrows,  penguins, people—the dome lights shining down on their faces in the windows as they passed by. “We race our eyes along the mad river” ... “Look at the oil the car left on the road and how it glistens and takes on the shape of whatever you desire” ... “I sit on the toilet seat warmed by your bum” ... And high above the bus, a spool on a string flying in the wind.

Dag T. Straumsvåg was born in 1964 and grew up on the west coast of Norway. He is the author and translator of six books and chapbooks of poetry, most recently Eleven Elleve Alive (with Stuart Ross and Hugh Thomas, shreeking violet press, 2018), Nelson (Proper Tales Press, 2017), and The Lure-Maker from Posio (Red Dragonfly Press, 2011), translated by Robert Hedin and Louis Jenkins. A selection of his poems is included in Robert Hedin: At the Great Door of Morning: Selected Poems and Translations (Copper Canyon Press, 2017. His poems have appeared in numerous journals in Norway and North America. He lives in Trondheim.