Anthologist-Preface: Jose Manuel Romero Santos
Translator: Giorgos Goumas
*
Sindre Andersen, Nora Aschim, Erlend Wichne, Charlotte Louise Vaillot Knudsen, Audun Mortensen, Thea Trøen Bjertnes, Victoria Durnak, Unnveig Aas, Fredrik Hagen, Atle Håland.
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In 1936, inspired by the Spanish Civil War, the Norwegian poet Nordhal Grieg composed “Til ungdommen” (To the Youth), his most celebrated poem. It begins with the iconic verse “Surrounded by enemies” to honor brotherhood against strife and war, which he defined as “contempt for life”.
In the case of young poets, the enemy doesn’t wear the clear-cut guise of war, fascism and violence brought by carrying a flag. The conflict is more of an existential nature, and although the enemy is a single entity, it has more than one aspect. Under this duty – and this term is used in the sense of a self-imposed and unavoidable obligation – young poets from Norway, Spain, Greece, or dare I say, from all over the world, are almost invariably set against their own inner demons, and this has been imposed on them because of their place in history and the reflected image of their own mirror, a mirror whose form is digital and hideous. Nonetheless, they wage their struggle armed with the same weapons forged by the nephew of the composed Edvard Grieg (1843 – 1907), with which he inspired the entire people, not just for an ideological contest, for a conflict, but also for a spiritual isolation under the cover of a mankind that would unite to form a defence against the tangible pain of war.
I will reiterate my position that the poetry of 20th century young poets is essentially global. Contemporary young poets show that their thematic, artistic and stylistic preoccupations are essentially common – and here I will add that I have never met any of the featured poets in person, although I have spoken with them on many occasions. Now, it is not necessary to attribute the causes for these preoccupations to globalization and the development of new technologies. This is precisely one of the main themes of young poets: within the expanding and overbearing dominion of mass media, people are incapable of communicating with each other. The contemporary poet denounces the inability to form spiritual connections in the age of connectivity, in a post-Nordhal Grieg world, in a postmodern world. It is my belief that this denunciation is based on the personal experiences of poets and the acknowledgement of the fact that these experiences are not a product of their personalities, but they grow out of the discouraging pressure of the modern age.
For example, Atle Håland, in several of his poems, showcases a person who uses the Internet solely for sexual “dealings”, with a body apparently stripped of its humanity, its soul and history, almost mocking the possibility for noteworthy relationships in the age of postmodernism:
I don’t care whoever you are tonight
let’s put the panic aside
we don’t have to worry about a thing in here
in here we are free
I have Valium
I also see in contemporary young poets a particular preoccupation with everyday life and its effects on the individual. After shedding the epic tendencies of their predecessors, which are still expressed in Grieg, young poets must seek their own heroic (or antiheroic) destiny in the chores, hardships and contemplations of everyday life. Victoria Durnak, for instance, informs us that:
The mail arrives at ten past twelve
from Monday to Wednesday
at half past twelve for the rest of the week
I listen the same song nineteen times in a row
nineteen times four minutes and fifty four
seconds
the wooden floor gives me an itch
I count the tiles on the ceiling, the hours
in OBS hypermarket
Nora Aschim, the youngest poet in this anthology, supplements everyday life with the worries contained in the transition to adulthood:
There is a lady, a girl
in the mirror
who could be me
we meet sometimes
say hi, nod to each other
we don’t have much to say
Audun Mortensen remarks:
I feel like an old prudish and sharp-tempered man
whenever I ride the train
two more stops to go, at most
I run for the remainder of the ride
crash on the bed and cry to my pillow
as soon as I reach home
And Fredrik Hagen notices:
sometimes you wake up with your arms extended
removed from the body on both sides
f the bed
where no one is lying down
you caress the sheets with your hands
Notice, however, how the insignificant everyday life of such persons conceals a tragedy, which is made all the more horrible because of the contrast with the factual narration of a daily routine.
The characteristics mentioned so far are common in the style of young poets all over the world. Nevertheless, except for the sporadic typical particularities – for example, the use of capital letters is practically nonexistent – young Norwegian poets have a specific trait that cannot be easily found in poets from other countries and it has to do with their theory that life is a tragedy, as it is evident in the examples presented above. It is obvious that there is a tendency for bitterness and disillusionment that runs through Norwegian poetry and this tendency is cautiously revealed in isolated and breathtaking verses, as in the case of Thea Trøen Bjertnes:
they thought it was pneumonia
I laughed when I got out of the car
in the parking lot outside Kiwi
he had died two hours ago
Furthermore, the awkward family is a repeating motif in young Norwegian poetry, as demonstrated by the author and singer Unnveig Aas:
something we had in common
like
the fact that our parents had cancer almost at the same time
On the other hand, there are, of course, exceptions when it comes to themes, artistic concepts and style, as it is evident in the works of the French-Norwegian poet Charlotte Louise Vaillot Knudsen or those of Erlend Wichne, who both possess a special visual sensibility and employ the calligram as a medium for meaning – after all, several of the poets anthologized here are also involved in plastic arts. Vaillot Knudsen, who, contrary to other Norwegian poets, sees poetry as a medium for intriguing readers, offers us verses such as:
the words will be there
between us
like a waterfall in which we
dissolve
and float t
o
t
h
e
b
o
t
t
o
m
Erlend Wichne looks to seaweed for inspiration, in order to compose his characteristically rebellious verses:
Some seas make up a surface that covers
more thanhalf
the earth
with
a
depth
of many
dark
leagues
Sindre Andersen, however, is undoubtedly the most introspective poet in this anthology and at the same time, perhaps the one poet who desires most to reconcile his inner world with the external world, which young poets perceive as exceedingly harsh:
I started with the words
because only I existed
And they were endless
even though nowadays
I have many friends all around the world
who carry the mystery of life inside them
If I used Grieg’s poem to establish a series of analogies, I now feel it necessary to do the same in order to emphasize a situation which I am uncertain whether it is frustrating or encouraging: I speculate that the verses of the poem “To the Youth” do not apply to this young poetic generation, not only because of the different historical and social circumstances, but because of a justified rebelliousness inherent in these young persons, who, as they are now free from the pretenses of the old and immediate circumstances, felt compelled to revolt and create their own unique style, which, although it doesn’t completely sideline the form of the other, gives more emphasis to the I. It therefore seems that Grieg’s appeal to values of unity, brotherhood and growth for the future generations was in vain, because he failed to see that from the ashes of the Second World War a new absolutism would emerge, the absolutism of the individual, without any faith in the life and value of mankind, in a society where communication is completely absent.
José Manuel Romero Santos