I n g e r C h r i s t e n s e n —

translated by M a t t h e w T r a v e r s

Winter – paranoia 

Not this prudery, this cynical grief. Not these tiles, these chests, 

this revenge that is sweet. Not this plain ordinary power struggle. Just to 

find the best skeleton. 

And not these bare bathhouses. Not these sanitised thoughts about the world, these

comical steam-washed bodies expelled clean of lust and erotic confusion. 

Not this lack of soul and filth. 

And above all, not these childish ideas of justice equality and free- 

dom, these logical chlorinated reservoirs where the revolution is a first-class corpse. 

But a corpse. 

What about those who think it is summer… what about the revelation, this 

great ironic daylight… who love you because you break apart… 

(1971)

Vinter – paranoia  

Ikke denne kyskhed, denne kyniske sorg. Ikke disse fliser, disse kister, 

denne hævn der er sød. Ikke denne jævne almindelige magtkamp. Bare for 

at finde det bedst skelet. 

Og ikke disse blottede baderum. Ikke disse renlige tanker om verden, disse 

komiske dampvaskede kroppe krænget rene for lyst og erotisk forvirring. 

Ikke denne mangel på sjæl og svineri. 

Og frem for alt ikke disse barnagtige ideer om retfærdighed lighed og fri- 

hed, disse logiske klorreservater hvor revolutionen er et førsteklasses lig. 

Men et lig. 

Hvad med dem der tror det er sommer … hvad med åbenbaringen, dette 

store ironiske dagslys … der elsker dig fordi du går til grunde … 

A faxed sonnet

From Hotel Eden in a lit-up Bonn

I send you a ruminating sonnet

of darkness, of how stumblingly adept

a sleepy lover of Endymion

by the screen’s bluelight wakes up while dreaming,

he never deserted his sister moon,

just pretends the satellite-signal’s blue

is the room where her moonbeams are streaming.

But when in an upturned image he sees

that Luna pushes him out to conceive

from cherished endless sleep to truth’s sole time,

forced his febrile fingers to fix ribbons

of stained silver, so he can turn visions

around himself on the screen’s pantomime.

(1991)

En faxet sonet

Fra Hotel Eden i en oplyst Bonn

sender jeg en grublende sonet

om mørket, om hvor snublende adræt

en søvnig kærligheds Endymion

ved skærmens blålys vågner op og drømmer,

han aldrig har forladt sin søster måne,

kun ladet satellitsignaler blåne

det rum, hvor hendes månestråler strømmer.

Men da han i et omvendt billed ser,

at Luna presser ham i fødselsveer

fra elsket evig søvn til sandheds time,

får hans febrilske fingre fixet båndet

af plettet sølv, som han kan sno beåndet,

omkring sig selv på skærmens pantomime.

YOU

something stops my gaze

something stops a moment

the heart on its path

something stops my vision

stops my floating fever vision

stops frantically in the middle of the path

and calls to the heart

something stops my heart

passes over the bridge through the mouth

meeting

hammering so once again the double happiness

closely entwined heartbeats

(1960)

DU

noget standser mit øjekast

noget standser et øjeblik

hjertet på vej

noget standser mit syn

standser mit svævende febersyn

standser febrilsk midt på vejen

og kalder på hjertet

noget standser mit hjerte

går over broen gennem munden

møder

hamrer så atter den dobbelte lykkes

tæt sammenslyngede hjerteslag

PARADISE?

already ages ago we lost

all caresses and disguises

our wardrobe creaks

on rusted hinges

a longing for honest content

deep in the garden I try again

to bind grass around my hips and flowers

leaning up against tired

breathing alone in the garden

not yet apples but flowers

already ages ago have I heard this laughter

from the empty dried-up wardrobe

does it still not know

that we can always begin

to flourish.

(1960)

PARADIS?

for længst har vi mistet

alle kærtegn og forklædinger

vort klædeskab knirker

på rustnede hængsler

længsel mod hæderligt indhold

inderst i haven forsøger jeg igen

at binde græs om mine hofter og blomster

læner mig op imod træt

ånder alene i haven

endnu ikke æbler men blomster

for længst har jeg hørt denne latter

fra det tomme indtørrede klædeskab

ved den endnu ikke

at vi altid kan begynde

at blomstre.

Translator’s Note

The four poems gathered here are from Inger Christensen’s Verden ønsker at se sig selv (The World Wishes to See Itself, 2019), a comprehensive 956-page volume of uncollected poems, forewords, reviews and manuscript variants scrupulously compiled and edited by the Swedish poet and translator, Marie Silkeberg, and Peter Borum, Inger Christensen’s son.

‘You’ and ‘Paradise?,’ both from 1960, were poems originally intended for Vindrosen, a major Danish literature journal of the period. They anticipate elements of her mature work in their use of poetic form to enmesh everyday human desires within physiological and ecological bounds. ‘Winter—paranoia’, from 1971, muddies the conventional opposition between sanitation as restraint and resistance as psychological disturbance, and conjures instead a world where bodies can just as easily be ‘expelled clean’ of lust as by lust. In the seventh verse, Christensen omits the standard comma between ‘justice’ and ‘equality,’ perhaps to imply the former isn’t possible without the latter, at least in terms of what she labels ‘childish ideas.’ The poem’s final phrase, ‘break apart,’ for the Danish ‘går til grunde’, is a standard phrase often translated as ‘fall to pieces’ or ‘to go under ’, but which in the context of the poem has stronger connotations, more like a total collapse of the domestic interior. Lastly, there’s ‘Faxed Sonnet.’ Written in the same year as her tightly-compacted sonnet coronal, Butterfly Valley--A Requiem (1991), ‘Faxed Sonnet’ serves as a light-hearted out-take from that sequence. Christensen maintains the sonnet’s standard form while allowing her pastoral muse to become entangled in the conveniences of modern technology. I translate the Danish phrase, ‘sandheds time,’ as ‘truth’s sole time,’ rather than ‘truth’s hour;’ as a means of remaining faithful to the metre, sibilance, and the final word ‘pantomime.’

I’m extremely grateful to Ian Lockaby for his enthusiasm for this project and to Peter Borum for his incisive feedback which has greatly improved these translations and who has given me a much deeper appreciation of the precision, warmth, and brilliance of Christensen’s work. Finally, I would like to thank my Danish teaching colleagues at Ikast-Brande Gymnasium, who provided me with a set of wide-ranging English equivalents for phrases which revolve around the Danish verb ‘krænge’ — to rip apart, to turn inside out, to unroll, to capsize, to dismember — and by doing so, helped to translate the foremost Danish experimental poet of her generation. All remaining infelicities are a result of my own best judgement.