Varför snubblar du över diktens tröskel? Du som redan fallit från den nedärvda berättelsens rygg. Rörde jag inte vid din tunga med saltade händer? Skylde jag inte ditt rämnande tal? Du kunde låtit tystnaden lägra sig i din mun. Avundats skakningen i fotografens hand: en puls genom bildens rastrerade hjärta.
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Bli tvåstämmig. Både inomhusrösten och den utomhusliga, skavd av vädrets lek. Ha minst ett sår att handha, minst en grav att skotta igen. Identifiera sig med snödroppens blinda förhävelse. Bära alla dessa ännu ej avlossade ägg, dessa fosterbrev som skulle tagit dig tillbaka till ditt ursprung.
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Aldrig har jag hört kärleken beskrivas för vad den är; en sågtand, ett slagregn som får oss att överge våra boplatser och gå rakt ut mot rännan, bländade av ett artificiellt löfte. Ett krig bryter ut, jämnårigt med våra famntag. Jag vaknar på natten med brösten spända som skålar och minns bilden av ditt ensamma ansikte strax innan allting lyfte i ett vrål av eld.
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Du tvättar grus mellan dina fotografiska händer. Allt har med oss att göra, till och med ringlederna runt staden tycks utgöra ett slags vigselbevis. Jag antecknar nödvändigheten av att intellektualisera sin besvikelse. Hjärtat viltslaget i kroppen. Med vattenpass mätte vi kärleken, hörde inte svängningarna av självdestruktivitet. Jag häller salt runt din sovande kropp. Hela tiden andras uppmärksamhet som tjära på mina läppar.
från En Enkel Berättelse
Marie Lundquist
Listen to an excerpt of the original Swedish read by the poet:
The vantage point of Marie Lundquist’s prose poems is interior, as if spoken directly from the speaker’s thoughts. This is why the poems hold a near-dreamlike sense of time and place that is both vividly precise and intricately textured—like photographs framed by silence; or in the case of her briefest utterances, like incisions into silence. There is nothing superfluous in her poems, the way a photograph depicts precisely what is in front of the camera. The poems, while using language, both reflect on, engage, and transform language. It is like thinking about thinking and how that inevitably deepens the experience of thinking. The transformative movement of the poems is governed by an internal law. To translate Lundquist’s work, as a result, is to be deeply enriched and inspired by her astonishing linguistic transformations, as well as to contend with its emotional and dizzying internal depth. It is also to contend with the fact that Swedish words and syntax are heavier than English words and syntax, and that the texture of the language is ornately carved.
Marie Lundquist , born in Sweden in 1950, is the author of twelve books of poetry and prose. Formerly a librarian and a teacher, she published her first book of poems, I Walk Around Gathering Up My Garden for the Night, in 1992. The collection was published in English by Bitter Oleander Press in 2020, in Kristina Andersson Bicher’s translation. Lundqusit is also translator from the Norwegian of the work of Nobel Laureate Jon Fosse into Swedish. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including Sveriges Radios Lyrikpris (2002), a stipendium from the Svenska Akademien (2007), De Nios Lyrikpris (2008), and the Aspenströmpriset (2015).
Malena Mörling is the author of two books of poetry: Ocean Avenue (New Issues Poetry & Prose, 1999) and Astoria (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2006). Her third book, Lumina Station, is forthcoming from Alice James Books in November 2026. She has published translations of work by Nobel Laureate Tomas Tranströmer and numerous other Swedish poets. Together with Jonas Ellerström, she edited and translated The Star by My Head: Poets from Sweden (Milkweed Editions, 2014). She has received a Lannan Literary Fellowship, a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Dianna L. Bennett Fellowship from the Beverly Rogers, Carol C. Harter Black Mountain Institute. She is a Professor of Creative Writing at The University of North Carolina, Wilmington. She lives in Santa Fe, NM.
