Remainland: Selected Poems

by Aase Berg, Johannes Göransson (Translator)

PPoetry. Translated from the Swedish by Johannes Goranson. REMAINLAND showcases poetry from four volumes by Aase Berg, one ofSweden's most celebrated and subversive young writers. From the wrecked fairy-tale-scape of With Deer to the pregnancy allegory Transfer Fat, from the sci-fi naturalism of Dark Matter to the catastrophic oasis of Uppland, Berg works language into miniature grotesques which invert the truisms of contemporary society. Her compulsive inventiveness provides an excoriating challenge to all cultures of complacency. "Let yourself be troubled by this terrific poetry#151;this is a place of weird music and visceral delight"#151;Lisa Jarnot.

Genres: Poetry

112 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2005

About the author

Poet, fiction writer, critic, translator, and one of the founding members of the Stockholm Surrealist Group.

Reviews

[Donald Armfield · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve read both collections “With Deer” and “Dark Matter” Dark Matter blew my mind and I found myself floating in a darkness of Berg’s Sci-Fi mind fuck.
Remainland is a collection of poems from above mentioned, “Transfer Fat” and Uppland. I’m not sure if these poems have an understanding to them. But I recommend Reading this translated catastrophic oasis.

Favorites:
-Hydrophobia
-Umbilical String
-Deformation Zone

[exorcismemily · Rating 2 out of 5]

"I would feel the heart scream, hear the landscape heave out of you."

Remainland is a collection of Aase Berg's poems from a couple different books. I think this book will be perfect for the right reader, but I really didn't connect with it. It felt very emotionless, which is not really what I look for in poetry. I don't know if things got lost in translation, or it just wasn't a book for me. I struggled to get into it, and every time something would grab my attention, I would lose sight of what was going on. I liked the poems from With Deer the best. On to the next one.

[Rauan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Selected poems from Berg's first four books. Worth reading just for the brilliant and intense prose poems of the first two. Berg's poems are to be admired. Wild, but controlled: poems many young american poets would do well to study.

[Lázsló Alcarey · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is life force held in pulp.

[Benjamin Niespodziany · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't normally begin with 'selected', but this is such a great assembly of Berg's eclectic work. I grabbed With Deer as soon as I closed this one. Burn through this book and feel the mystical split between the woodland and the cosmos.

[Kyle Muntz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty fantastic selected poems. Raw, grotesque, convoluted: like an SF nightmare. My favorite of the four books featured was Transfer Fat; liked them all, but going with four stars because I don't know if the rest of the collection was on that same level. Since I was looking for it, it's not hard to see Berg's influence on Goransson's early writing as well. Will probably pick up Tranfer Fat at some point as well, in order to read more fucked up poems about whales.

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I just realized I've gone back to look at his book enough that I've technically read it twice now, maybe three times. It's uglier on the second read--purposefully, I think--but more interesting, and I think I have a better idea of Berg's conceptual project. The wierd thing though is I don't reread often and I hadn't even realized i'd been through this again until I was done.

[Lisa]

I'm reading this with my favorite Poet, because I have a suspicion that Aasa Berg's verbal contortions come across better in the interpretation of a fellow writer.

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wildly inventive linguistically. Wild, generally. Striking imagery. Wish I could read this untranslated.