Thom Satterlee is the recipient of a 2014 PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant for his translation of New and Selected Poetry of Per Aage Brandt. Long considered one of Denmark’s most distinguished poets and scholars, Per Aage is writing his best poetry today, in the twilight of a long and prolific career. His poems take the reader on a lyrical journey through a mind that is constantly probing, questioning, remembering, reflecting, indicting. Satterlee’s translation recreates the subtlety and intelligence of the original with elegance and concision. Read Satterlee’s essay on translating New and Selected Poetry of Per Aage Brandt here.
I don’t cohere, I contradict my-
self from moment to moment
especially from day to night, I am
the wind that blows from north
and south, though not simultaneously,
therein lie the limits of my incoherence
*
I’m spilling time, it’s milk
on the floor, water down
the back of a duck, words
for my good colleague lars,
it runs through the cracks
from which no one and nothing
returns, so hold on to the ice age,
the frozen time, save it in your
deep-freeze, enter and exist there,
I tell myself, be cold as cold is
(cool)
*
it rains, it blows, it darkens, it goes
on and on, no one in the weather cares
about us, whatever time it is, and soon
it is morning, trees are down, the dead
and the injured appear in the papers, they
bleed black, no one in the weather cares
(the weather is the world)
*
the cat comes in happily with another baby rabbit,
warm but dead, how many times must I tell you,
we can’t go on writing the same truth over and over
(can we, cat? cf. iraq)
*
he wrote a piece for 80 trombones and another for
4 barges filled with flutists, to Amsterdam’s canals,
they’d sail under the bridges, while marching bands
stomped over them, and the bells clanged from every
tower, huge women’s choirs howled from churches,
and wood crackled at home in the composer’s fireplace
(Henry Brant, rest in peace)
This translation is available for publication.
This piece is part of PEN’s 2014 translation series, which features excerpts and essays from the recipients of this year’s PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grants.