Inger Christensen

[Mirabell]

Inger Christensen, considered one of Denmark's greatest authors and long mentioned among probable candidates for a Nobel Literature prize, has died at the age of 73, on Friday, January 2, her publisher said on Monday. Born on Jan 16, 1935 in the western Danish town of Vejle, Christensen published her first collection of poems, Lys (Light) in 1962, followed by Graes (Grass) a year later, Det (It (http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/WEBSITE/WWW/WEBPAGES/showbook.php?id=1857549406)) in 1969, Alfabet (Alphabet (http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/WEBSITE/WWW/WEBPAGES/showbook.php?id=1852243104)) in 1981 and Sommerfugledalen (The Butterfly Valley (http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/WEBSITE/WWW/WEBPAGES/showbook.php?id=0811215792)), which critics have hailed as her masterpiece, 1991
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/blogosphere/9257-inger-christensen-r-i-p.html
http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/blogosphere/9200-inger-christensen-1935-2009-a.html


Here is a review of her book "Alphabet"
Love Exists, Love Exists?By Wyatt Mason (Harper's Magazine) (http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/01/hbc-90004259)

[titania7]

M.,
As always, you're one step ahead of the rest, darling! Thank you for starting this thread on Christensen. The themes she dealt with through her amazing poetry--namely love, power, powerlessness, and decay--make it easy to see why her work has had such an impact on the world of Scandinavian poetry. It's interesting to note what Ingrid's reply was to interviewers who asked whether or not she found the complicated structures she created confining: "No," she said, "once I've set the structure, I'm free within it."

Alphabet sounds like a must-read. It's difficult to even imagine what a 77-page poem that catalogs the entire living planet, via incantation, would be like. I can't wait to read it. I'm a tremendous admirer of T. S. Eliot. So, the fact Alphabet is compared to Four Quartets makes it sound even more appealing.

We will all miss a poet of such immense creativity, who was capable of penning exquisite words such as these:

"love exists, love exists,
your hand a baby bird so obviously tucked
into mine..."

Beautiful.

~T.