fanatic fandom

My other blog is a BMW. But this is a bandanna-pink Volkswagen Beetle - for flirty frivolous fun and fanatic fandom. This is where i get to play the bimbonic-geek and rave, enthuse, bitch and rant about anything and everything under the sun. Feel free to chip in!

Thursday, September 26, 2013

new-old nordic poet

Have just been introduced to a new Nordic poet -- or rather, a Nordic poet i've never heard of before. Inger Christensen (1935 -- 2009). A woman too. She wrote in Danish, but her work's been translated into English. Here's the poem that piqued my interest:
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I always thought reality
was something you became
when you grew up.
.
In the square stands Fata Morgana
looking tired, shouting
Morning paper—morning paper.
.

(from Light, by Inger Christensen)
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i don't know how this sounds in Danish -- possibly rather ugly, actually, from what i know of the Danish language -- but in English it has that plain, simple clarity that i sometimes admire so much in writing -- if the clarity is there for a purpose and not just because of a writer's literary limitations. (i think it's possible to tell the difference...).
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In this case, i like the simple confession of a childish misunderstanding, and Christensen's sheer daring in bringing a word like 'reality' into the first line of a poem. (i'm remembering now what Nabokov said about how 'reality' is the one word that should always be enclosed in inverted commas...).
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But what makes this poetry is the 2nd stanza -- the way 'Fata Morgana' is slipped in, just like that -- looking tired, selling the morning paper with all its news and distortions of news. The juxtaposition of the two stanzas gives the poem a tantalising air of mystery. This poem has its secrets.
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