Featured Verse: Spiny Babbler Museum: Athrine Grondahl,Norway: Poem126
FEATURED
VERSE This
section features international poetry chosen by Spiny Babbler editors from around
the world. This poem appears in "Modern Poems of Europe" edited by Patricia
and William Oxley.
CATHRINE
GRØNDAHL, Norway (b.
1969)
She is a Norwegian
poet and these poems were translated from Ranting, Raving Rhythms published
by Gyldendal in 1994. This was her first collection.
UNWRITTEN
LIFE
Only
as witnesses do we exist: Start writing! - Gunnar Ekelöf
Was it really
there?
Did anyone ever see
the wingspan
in the idea
of the clumsy albatross
before it unfolded itself
sideways?
Was it really there?
Did anyone ever see
a petalled love
in the blue rose
before it unfolded itself
in a beautiful rhyme?
Was it really worth the trip?
Did anyone ever bother to go
with the wireless minotaur
into the labyrinth
before it sounded out
Ariadne?
Was it really possible?
Did anyone ever believe
that the melancholy clerk
could make the syntax vomit
in the middle of an overeaten sentence,
and let the words lie arched
in a surrealistic curve of laughter?
Were they ever really there
any of them?
Were there one or two or
none of them?
Who were they?
Translated
by Anne Born
About
the translator: an
English poet in her own right, she has published many books of poetry. A
respected and well-known translator of poetry and prose from the Scandinavian
languages.
COLLECTIBLES