Danish Poetry AN ANTHOLOGY Edited by Line Jensen, Erik Vagn Jensen, Knud Mogensen, Alexander D. Taylor Introduction by Torben Brostr0m GYLDENDAL COPENHAGEN, DENMARK TWAYNE PUBLISHERS BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, U.S.A.
Contents Editors' Note Introduction 1 List of Translators 11 Sophus Claussen In an Orchard 12 Anadyomene 14 Look, I Met in a Street 15 Heroica 16 The Flowing out into Infinity 17 Johannes V. Jensen At Lunch 19 At Memphis Station 23 Otto Gelsted Carriage Ride 27 The Show Boat 28 Tom Kristensen The Execution 31 Grass 34 Fear 35 It's Knud Who Is Dead 36 William Heinesen Hymnus Amoris 37 Rain in Leningrad 40 The Ascension of J. H. O. Djurhuus, Poet 41
CONTEMPORARY DANISH POETRY Paul la Cotir The Unforeseen 44 She Could not Fall 45 The Tree 46 Threshold 46 Pelopounesian Nights 47 Faint Hern-sound of Summer 48 Nis Petersen Spring at Mariager Fjord 49 Two Little Okl Widows Playing Duet 50 Elegy 1946 51 Jens August Schade The Heavenly Sun Changed Eyes Woman Equinox My Young Love The Wonderful Vast- Nocturnal Ride Snow I Love You The Bureau At the Movies A" Strawberry Hulda Liitken The Moon Mother 52 53 53 54 54 55: 55 38 57 57 58 59 GO Johannes Wul$ The Friend Is Dead 62 Ecstasy of the Flesh 65 Gustaf Munch-Petersen The Land Below 70
Contents At the Bottom The Special Miracle Portrait A Little Song Song of the Council The Certainty Etching Fishing Hamlet Winter March Tove Meyer In a Garden back Home Tove Ditlevsen Sunday Divorce 1 You Who Someone The Round Room Divorce 3 Self-portrait 1 Self-portrait 4 Viet Hein Hamlet Anno Domini Majority Rule The Me above the Me The Common Well Losing Face The Road to Wisdom Hint and Suggestion The True Defence Consolation Grook Halfd&n Resmussen Sardine Something about Heroes 72 73 74 74 75 76 77 77 78 78 79 83 85 87 88 90 92 93 95 96 97 98 99 100 H)1 102 103 104 105
CONTEMPORARY DANISH POETRY Old Johnson the Letterbox-painter 108 Snowman Frost and Lady Thaw 109 Morten Nielsen We're Sending Dance Music at Night 110 Announcement of a Defeat 111 I See Tonight 112 We Couldn't Stay away from Each Other 113 They Are Playing Ball on the Road 114 Ole Sarvig My Sorrow 115 Pale Morning 116 Walk 117 Skylights 118 Thought-stillness 119 The Moon's Day 120 Christ in the Grain Fields 121 Thistles 121 Overlooking the Cemetery 122 R 4 123 ]0rgen Nash Song of Silence 124 Let Us Sing of the Paradise Earth 125 Dreams Come True Sometimes 127 World Youth 128 Bird Song 129 Some People 130 Bundgard Povlsen Month of August Poem 131 Love Poem 132 Lizard. 132 My Black Windows Shining Miles away in the Night 133 The Blue Coffee Pot 133
Contents Patience among Trees 135 A Superannuated Romantic 136 Ole Wivel The Cologne Cathedral 137 Holy Andrew's Barrow 138 The Repentant Magdalene of the Roadside 139 Stenild Cemetery 139 To Poul Winther 140 Erik Knudsen My Lundbye Ecstasy "141 The Flower and the Sword 142 Non Scholae 143 The Representatives 146 Bourgeois All at Sea 147 Lise S0rensen Hold My Hand 148 In the Dark 149 Boy's Life 150 Our Don John 151 Previously Unpublished 152 In a White Kayak 153 Ivan Malinovski Love Poem 155 The Petrol Heart 157 Demonstration 159 Critique of the Way of the World 160 Critique of Distraction 160 Critique of Myself 160 Critique of the Child Slayers 161 Critique of Freedom 161 Critique of Reason 161 Critique of Long Suffering 162
CONTEMPORARY DANISH POETRY Critique of Silence 162 Critique of Defeatism 163 Ovc Abildgaard Terndive 164 Winter Dream 166 12 Eggs 167 J0rgen 167 Thorkild Bj0rnvig The Ballad of the "Great Eastern" 168 Dysphorial Obituary 174 Frank Jasger Sunday in September 177 To a Sensitive Girl Friend 178 The Afternoon of the Faun in the Park 179 Small Sun 180 But in September 180 Lover 181 Sidenius in Esbjerg 183 Children Sing like This 184 }0rgen Gustava Brandt Sound of the Bell 185 Come Aboard 186 My Element 187 Night Hour of Suchness 187 You 189 The House in Copenhagen 189 Patience 190 Out of Nothing You Come Walking 191 Let Me Touch You 191 It Is the Bird in the Tree 192 Per H0jholt November 194 M/S Nelly in Countersound 194
Contents Outside So and so Many Larks A 5-pinnate Leaf The Poet H Frosty Night Turbo 4 195 196 196 197 197 198 Robert Corydon Sea Poem 200 Nettles 201 Shout between Two Boats at Sea 202 Chinese Brush 202 The Sign.203 Spacecraft R101 204 Ocean Bridle 205 ]0rgen Sonne It Is You 206 The Shepherds' Adoration 207 The Fold-out Men 208 Bird in Mountains 210 Uffe Harder Cycling 211 Factors 212 To Reach out for Pen and Paper 213 Object 213 Deep Quiet with Snow 214 An Assignment of Icarus 215 Conditions 217 Cecil B0dker Self-portrait The Companion June Night Under the Sign of the Ram Calendar 218 219 220 221 222
CONTEMPORARY DANISH POETRY Klaus Rifbjerg Birth Medieval Morning Zeus in that Mood Byron and Company Spring Afternoon 224 226 228 229 231 233 }0rgen Leth My Vietnam Poem 234 There Is always Music through the Walls 236 Tales, Number 10 237 Tales, Number 15 239 Benny Andersen This Uncertainty 242 Goodness 243 M 244 Photographs 244 Time 245 Life Is Narrow and High 246 Earthworm 247 High and Dry 248 Melancholy 248 A Hole in the Earth 249 Paul Borum A Green Shed 250 A Train Is Passing 251 Pictures from Reality - 251 Against a Wall 253 The Black Picture 254 The House 255 While the House Is Burning 256 Madrigal 257
Contents A Fierce Desire 258 Your Lips, Your Tongue. 258 Inger Christensen Leaning Tenderly against the Night 260 What Is My Dead, Cracked Body 261 In the Wild Mountain Solitude 261 Sorrow 262 From: "It" 262 Vagn Steen I Am no Shower 267 Technically It Is Possible 268 Mirror Mirror on the Wall 272 $ascapitalistic$society$ 272 Hans-j0rgen Nielsen Mobiles. Variations on the Snow, 1, 2, 5 273 The Body, a Burning Singing-machine 275 A Few Lines and a Dog 277 From: Figures Moved in Their Images. Not only Her 277 A Picture Somewhere in Language 278 On the Verge of Poetry 281 _ Per Kirkeby From: Explanations of Pictures 282 From: Jtingling auf der Wanderschaft (Two Poems) 284 From: Two Poems 286 Henrik Nordbrandt Disconnection 288 Stairsong 289 German Soldiers' Graves 290 To a Death Mask 290 When a Person Dies 291 Anaesthesia 291
CONTEMPO R A R Y BANISH POETRY Baklava 292 Byzantium 292 - In an Asian Village 2 3 A Funeral Portrait 294 Civil War 295 Dan Twell From: Karma Cowboy Theme Song 296 From: Song for Blake 298 Canto XXXVII 299 Canto XLVI.300 Peter Laugesen Manuscript 4th Version 302- November Piece 303 From: Writing 304 From: Catatonia 305 From: It Is only a Paper Moon 307 From: I Can Hear You Singing 308 From: Divine Innocence 309 Rolf Gjedsted Ole Water 310 Dawn 311 Rain Insanity 312 Salt 312 St en Kaal0 For Ever 313 You Sit out there, Peeing 316 Run 318 Recollection 319 Lean Nielsen Kurt's Story 320 Brothers Meet 321
Contents Marianrie Larsen Now I Am Gone 323 Sick Women in the Park 324 Serial Dream 325 Today 326. Unknown Person 328 Anonymous I, II 329 Seven-year-old Girls 330 Acknowledgments 331