Swedish Poetry 1
Their mouths don’t release anything more solid th
an clouds, no sounds, no forms more solid than clouds. Their hands carry mist, and all they carry and say and breathe: clouds that collects, becomes part of. If you go far enough away from the mountain – until it almost, just almost, disappears from your view – the mountain, too, becomes a cloud, melds with the sky, borrows its color and flecks from clouds. Open your mouth and exhale it, say that it collects and becomes part of, like everything else. If you go far enough from Kybele and the black stones she dropped dissolve in the mist. Dare to remain in what has never been a story, never a shape. The appearance of Kybele without Kybele, but also to say that this is no cloud and therefore I haven’t dare to stay. Let go of everything and carry nothing, fasten nothing to a stone, not even the stone. Åsa Maria Kraft, from Randfenomen (Marginal Phenomenon), 2015 Translated by Johannes Göransson ÅSA MARIA KRAFT Randfenomen (Marginal Phenomenon, 2015) Fears for the future of mankind are the connecting theme running through Åsa Maria Kraft’s poetry. Something that makes these disparate works hang together is essential, because in each book she reinvents her aesthetic approach. In Randfenomen she writes ecocriticism without turning it into the over-explicit poetry of the political pamphlet. This is a poem that shifts from the Middle Ages to the future, helped, in part, by medieval saints. Margareta of Antioch, who is swallowed by the Devil in the form of a dragon, and Kümmernis Librada Débarras, who can communicate telepathically with the last surviving bee. This is an odd but important book that maintains its hold on readers and refuses to leave them in peace. Selected Collections of Poetry: Diktaten (1999 ) Händerna lägger ner kransen (2001) I ständig hög konversation mellan jungfrurs huvuden, det sker (2003) Bevis (2005) Permafrostens avtagande (2007) Randfenomen (2015) 69 SWEDISH POETRY