this, from Johannes Goransson's substack--
Whether Swedish or not, if you have read my books you may notice that I reference Lars Norén’s work quite a bit. For example, I use a phrase from his diaries as the epigraph to The Sugar Book, and a few lines from a poem for my forthcoming book The Adorations). If you’re Swedish, there is no chance that you don’t know who Lars Norén was - he was one of the most famous writers of the 20th century (he died a few years ago from Covid). If you’re not Swedish, chances are you know his work primarily as a playwright, as he became one of the most prominent European playwrights of the late 20th century.
But for me, it was always the poetry that I loved the most. He began as a very young poet in the 1960s and 70s, before moving on to playwriting in the 80s (and also to directing) before returning with a couple of poetry collections before his death. Between those two there are of course the infamous diaries (which is really what my book POETRY AGAINST ALL is about - ie thoughts I had while reading Norén’s diaries). The poetry goes through a lot of changes over just a couple of decades. There are very traditionally lyrical poetry, there is concrete poetry, and poetry shaped by Nelly Sachs and Paul Celan. One of my favorite books is called Revolver, after I think The Beatles (it’s a constant flow of a book and at one point it simply quotes all of “Elenor Rigby” as if to say he’s listening to music while writing the book). Going back to my interest in mimicry as a model for art, he’s a fascinating poet because he seems to be mimicking models all the time (Strindberg, Celan, Swedish nature poetry, Sam Shepherd) but - like all acts of mimicry - he gets it wrong. And it’s the wrongness that gives the writing its power. In that, he’s a lot like Bob Dylan. Anyway, this morning I’ve been thinking about this poem from King Me and Other Poems: FROM A STUDIO APARTMENT IN HAGERSTEN 1970 The winter day is smooth and beautiful The lake like cold sperm And the heat is senseblue like the uniform of a nurse Snow falls all the way into the peace of bridges The kitchen smells of the boiled calf heart which the dog will be fed for dinner The goldfinches are birds that gather in the dark And language leads down to a meadow where whining German shepherds are walked in the death sun. (my translation) On one hand, this is the kind of poem that was very popular in Sweden at this time (and in the US): a poem of the everyday. In Sweden this kind of poetry is - contrary to the US - associated with a move from rural pastorals (nature poetry having been and remaining hugely important in Swedish poetry, much more so than in US poetry) to a more urban setting. The first line seems paradigmatic of both nature poetry and its later more urban version: it’s a beautiful day. But it’s also “blank” (in the Swedish original) - which doesn’t mean “blank” but more like the smooth shape of say a pearl, but smooth isn’t exactly the right word - as if coated over with some substance. [And in another poem - I can’t find it right now - he says that his dead parents have become “their own substance” which I think is true.] But what follows really puts “beautiful” into question! The metaphors go off like explosions in the poem: the lake is somehow like “cold sperm”, the heat is like a nurse’s uniform (suggesting the common intersection in Norén’s work of institutionalization and erotics) and the sun is full of death. This death both does and does not get foregrounded in the poem: after all you have that “boiled calf heart” at the heart of the poem. What kind of beauty is this? And what kind of nature? If the poems of this era tended to emphasize their urban-ness, Norén’s poem remains tied to the tradition of nature poetry: there’s meadow, a calf heart, the dogs, the weather etc. It’s like the poem cannot decide if it’s a new urban poem, or a nature poem. In a way this poem could be compared to US poets like James Wright or Bill Knott. And indeed Norén was translated a little by Merwin (including poems from this collection). But it feels quite a bit more startling to me. I think only Bill Knott would have compared a lake to sperm. The difference from Wright I think can be sensed at the end of another poem, a few pages later, which like Wright’s famous “Autumn Comes to Martin’s Ferry” ends with horse death. But in Norén’s poem it goes “…the tall trees, heavy/from naked dead horses breathing summer light.” In difference to Wright’s famous suicidal sons, Norén’s poem isn’t resigned about the dead horses. There’s an ecstatic darkness to Norén’s work from this period that feels utterly alien to US poetry. Like US poets like Wright and Bly, he was influenced by Trakl. Like Trakl - and unlike those US poets - nature could be really grotesque, creepy, unsettling. I love that about his poems from this period. But there’s also lines of beautiful simplicity in this book, like when in at the end of another poem “See Linda walk through rooms listening to birds” |
Comments
Post a Comment