Translations

Like the trees

by Nanna Storr-Hansen

Ligesom træerne
vokser jeg
opad
er det særligt
menneskeligt
hvad er det
med højden
sorter dig frem
gennem det
afgrundsdybe
når nogen endelig
får dig til at stønne
nu er der nok penge
jeg kan ligne en
brud
any time
det skal være
forkæl den næste
følelse
ved at mærke efter
de hænder som følger dig
gennem natten
den spastiske
orddeling
i ekstasen
forkæl den næste
sætning
ved at skrive den ned
en form for
husdyb
afgrund
en form for
sælger-gen
at jeg vil sige dig
hvordan jeg har det

Like the trees
#

translated from the Danish by
Christopher Sand-Iversen


Like the trees
I grow
upward
is it especially
human
what is it
about height
picking your way
through the
abyssal depths
when someone finally
makes you groan
now there’s enough money
I can look like a
bride
any time
you like
coddle the next
feeling
by taking notice
those hands that follow you
through the night
the spastic
line breaks
in ecstasy
coddle the next
sentence
by writing it down
a kind of
abyss
deep as a house
a kind of
salesman’s gene
that I want to tell you
how I’m feeling

Nanna Storr-Hansen, born 1991, is a Danish poet. Her debut Spektakel (Spectacle) was published in 2017, one year after her graduation from the Royal Danish Academy of Creative Writing. In 2018, her second book Mimosa followed. Mimosa was short-listed for the Danish Literary Award (Danish Critics Prize for Literature), the 2018 Montana Prize for Fiction. Her poems appear in several contemporary Danish literary magazines, and explore themes of the female body, nature, and ecofeminism.

FROM Volume 68, Number 2

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