Torgeir Fjeld

Poetry

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Drawing by Patrycja Fjeld.

Poetry

This is a collection of poetry in translation, written over a number of years and occasionally published on blogs, list-servs, & misc. other locations. No rights reserved.

Contents:

Øyvind Berg, “When you look up at a tall mountain”

Øyvind Berg, “A big bag of shit thinks”

Jon Fosse, “Dark mountains”

Jon Fosse, “It is cramped under the arch of heaven”

Jon Fosse, “Two angels met us in the doorway”

Arne Garborg, “Against the rising sun”

Göran Sonnevi, “Concerning the war in Vietnam”

Tadeusz Różewicz, “Always fragment * Recycling”

Tomas Tranströmer, “Along the river”

Tomas Tranströmer, From “The Grief Gondola”

Tor Ulven, From “A Book of Records”

Tor Ulven, From “Garbage Sun”

Tor Ulven, XVIII

Tor Ulven, “Exhibition I (Sketch For a Memorial)”

A film should stand on its own. It’s absurd if a film-maker needs to say what a film means in words. The world in the film is a created one, and people sometimes love going into that world. For them that world is real. And if people find out certain things about how something was done, or how this means this or that means that, the next time they see the film, these thing enter into the experience. And then the film becomes different. I think it’s so precious and important to maintain that world and not say certain things that could break the experience. You don’t need anything outside of the work. There have been a lot of great books written, and the authors are long since dead, and you can’t dig them up. But you’ve got that book, and a book can make you dream and make you think about things. David Lynch, “Interpretation,” in Catching the Big Fish.

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En pinande blåst drar genom huset i natt - demonernas namn.
A freezing wind is passing through our house to-night; the name of demons

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Svarta vykort

I Almanackan fullskriven, framtid okänd. Kabeln nynnar folkvisan utan hemland. Snöfall i det blystilla havet. Skuggor brottas på kajen. II Mitt i livet händer det att döden kommer och tar mått på människan. Det besöket glöms och livet fortsätter. Men kostymen sys i det tysta.

Black postcards

I A calendar fully booked. A future uncertain. The wire is humming quietly on a folk song without homeland. Snow falls on an ocean of led. Shadows wrestle on the dock. II Sometimes death arrives in the middle of life to measure man. It is a visit that is soon forgotten; life goes on. Our suit is sewn in silence.
From Tomas Tranströmer, Sorgegondolen [The Grief Gondola], 1996.
From Jon Fosse, Poesiar [Lyrics], 2016.

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