Through Naked Branches

by Tarjei Vesaas, Roger Greenwald (Editor)

Tarjei Vesaas, one of Scandinavia's greatest fiction writers, has been less well known as a poet. Now Roger Greenwald, an award-winning translator of Scandinavian poetry, presents forty-six poems drawn from Vesaas's six volumes of poetry. This selection is intended to reveal the distinctive sensibility and voice of Vesaas the poet. The Norwegian texts appear facing the English versions, which won the American-Scandinavian Foundation Translation Prize.The translator's groundbreaking introduction explores why Vesaas's poetry has often resisted critical analysis and how it challenges received notions of modernism. Excerpts from Vesaas's writings about himself and his work supply helpful background and give some sense of the man behind the work. Vesaas emerges as a lyric and meditative poet of uncommon depth, who renders states of being beyond the reach not only of discourse, but of most poetry as well.

From "The Boat on Land":

Your still boathasn't got a name.Your still boathasn't got a port.Your secret boat on land.

From "Shadows on the Point"

We stand here in your deep night, Night, and wait for something new from beyond the point.The current runs black and silent.And what we feel through itwe don't tell each other.

Genres: Poetry, Scandinavian Literature

184 pages, Paperback

First published March 6, 2000

About the author

Tarjei Vesaas was a Norwegian poet and novelist. Written in Nynorsk, his work is characterized by simple, terse, and symbolic prose. His stories often cover simple rural people that undergo a severe psychological drama and who according to critics are described with immense psychological insight. Commonly dealing with themes such as death, guilt, angst, and other deep and intractable human emotions, the Norwegian natural landscape is a prevalent feature in his works. His debut was in 1923 with Children of Humans (Menneskebonn), but he had his breakthrough in 1934 with The Great Cycle (Det store spelet). His mastery of the nynorsk language, landsmål (see Norwegian language), has contributed to its acceptance as a medium of world class literature.

Reviews

[Edita · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Boat on the Land

Your still boat
hasn't got a name.
Your still boat
hasn't got a port.
Your secret boat on land.

For this is no port —
On spring nights the leaves slosh white
above the ready, waiting boat,
and sprinkle down yellow and wet
onto the thwarts in October,
and no one has been there.

But there's a pull here from endless
plains of smooth sea,
where suns rise from deep
and the wind blows toward the harbor beyond.

But that's not a port either —
rather a place with a pull, a calling
from still larger plains,
a larger storm along the shore,
and a larger boat in the evening.

Your still boat is slowly overgrown.
Your secret boat on land.

[Edita · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beside the long gray road:
the ashes of burned-out fires
and signs of departure
in dust and heat.

That’s all.
But the fire that burned
in the circle of wanderers
faded only from sight,
its longing unquenched.

They wandered for a dream,
could give without limit
and had to go farther, searching
and restless,
and the blaze keeps burning
on every horizon,
while new seekers dig in the ashes
and in the ground under the ashes,
and it’s the dream that is
the wanderer's reward.

[Steven Godin · Rating 4 out of 5]

THE BOAT

Happily, we let it grow darker
before we left.
And when we got out there
we felt friendly; enchanted by
eager white breakers near the point,
they cut across the coal-black water
like a party dress swishing
around a knee.

We listened to the rushing
and livened up.
But when we got further out
we grew frightened
and didn't think so readily of dresses:
We felt a great pulse
coming up from Death below.

Each face changed color in its own way.
A call sounded in the dusk.
But all the names
answered frightened from the boat
that they were there.

After that
there was the ocean
The pulse and the ocean.

FROM THE STOOP

The shadows creep in across the clearing
like cool, quiet friends
after a burning day.

Our mind is a silent
kingdom of shadow.
And the shadows creep inward
with their friendly riddles
and their twilt blossoming.

The first shadow-tips
reach our feet.

We look up calmly:
Are you here already,
my dark flower.

THE BIRD

The bird stood ready
by the roadside and waited.

The bird was a miracle.
Its great wingspan
was oblivion.
The rhythm of its heartbeat
was mine.

Together we sailed
into the unknown.
Without questions.
Without sorrow.

[Víctor Bermúdez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Snø i eit andlet

Det drys nok ned som ei himmelsk ville,
men mørkret gøymer bort alt i kveld.
Og ingen larm blandar opp det stille
usynlege singlet av sno som fell.
Her stegar pà vegen sà ingen veit det.
Går ein gut, og så ingen fleir.
Han går frå fest, langs det kvite leite.
Går bort frå eit auge som ville meir.

Bort frä den fagre draumen bak linet
som aldri har hetna i honoms hand.
Men auga i kveld var sä rart i skinet.
Det kom med bod ifrå lova land.

Stille drevet silar langs kjaken,
rispar han lint med sitt sterneris.
Gleda gär gjennom natta naken.
Andletet brenn under bråna is.

Snow in a Face

It's sifting down like a jumbled heaven.
but the darkness tonight hides everything from view.
And there's no noise to break up the even
invisible tinkling of falling snow.

Walking the road so no one knows it,
one boy goes by, and that's all.
He's coming from a party, along the white hillside,
away from a glance that wanted more.

Away from the beautiful dream beneath the linen,
a dream that's never flamed in his hands.
But the glance tonight had a strange gleam in it;
came with a message from a promised land.

The quiet flakes float along his jawline,
gently scratch him with their switch of stars.
Delight is walking naked in the nighttime.
His face is burning as the snow dissolves.



Diktsamlingar
Kjeldene, 1946
Leiken og lynet, 1947
Lykka for ferdesmenn, 1949
Løynde eldars land, 1953
Ver ny, vår draum, 1956
Liv ved straumen, 1970

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started reading Vesaas' novels recently, and came across this selection of poetry during my searches. The prolific author did not start writing poetry until he was nearly 50 years old. He published 6 books of poems; the 6th, the posthumous ""Life At The Stream" (1970), was his strongest.
As with his novels, he deals mostly with the connection between Man (both individual and collective) and Nature. As well as interpersonal connections, and life in a rural Norwegian setting. Yet his best known poem may be "Rain In Hiroshima" (1947).
Translator Roger Greenwald has done a fine job with this bilingual edition (Vesaas wrote in Nynorsk, the 2nd official language of Norway, mostly used in the rural areas). His Introduction, which he admits having worked on for years, nicely places Vesaas within the Norwegian and Modern poetry community (I was not surprised with his comparison to William Carlos Williams, one of my very favorites). While at times falling into academia-speak (this is a Princeton U Press publication after all), his commentary on the poems and poet are insightful and helpful - for the most part. There is a turgid 10 page section in the Intro where Greenwald attempts to tie Vesaas' POV to the eco-philosophy of fellow Norwegian Arne Naess. While Naess began publishing in 1938, Greenwald mostly uses his most important work, "Ecology, Community and Lifestyle" (1976), to link their worldviews together. He provides no proof that Vesaas actually ever read any Naess - and Vesaas passed away 6 years prior to the publication of that seminal work! I admit that my eyes glazed over, and after the first couple of pages, I quickly browsed over the next 8 or so.
But yes, Vesaas' poetry is strong and insightful. As with his novels, the connection between Man and Nature are treated with a special high degree of understanding.
Melville Press is republishing some of the novel translations that Peter Owens published 40-50 years ago. This is greatly appreciated, and here's hoping Vesaas sees some much deserved attention in the English speaking world.
A strong 4 out of 5, although I am not sure how interested most people will be with a collection of 20th C Norwegian poetry!

[Martin Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

While Vesaas' fiction is where I'd point 99% of people to first, that is no indictment on the quality of his poetry, which is excellent. Vesaas fans should get this for Roger Greenwald's introduction alone, which is magnificent, insightful and illuminating.

[Derek Emerson · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent collection of solid verse that is both accessible and thought provoking. I cannot comment on the translation, but it reads like it was written in English. I marked several favorites, but the title poem and "Heat" were especially powerful.