EDITORS' CHOICE

Niels Hav. We Are Here. Translated by Patrick Friesen and P.K. Brask. Toronto: Book Thug, 2006.

The challenge posed by the Danish language denies most readers in the Anglo-Saxon world the pleasure of reading Danish poetry. This is particularly true when it comes to the works of contemporary Danish poets who are virtually unknown anywhere that English is the native language. Niels Hav's We Are Here, aptly translated into English by Patrick Friesen and P.K. Brask, brings to us a selection from the works of one of Denmark's most talented living poets and is all the more welcome for that reason.

Born near Lemvig in north-western Jutland in 1949, Niels Hav has published a number of short stories and collections of poetry since his debut in 1981. Hav is widely known in his native Denmark, and his works have been translated into several languages. The poems of We Are Here are taken from two different collections, Grundstof ("Element," 2004), which provides thirty-eight of the volume's forty-five poems, and Når jeg bliver blind ("When I Become Blind," 1995), which furnishes six of the remaining seven poems. ("A Mystery" appears for the first time in the present volume.)

As exemplified in We Are Here, Hav's poetry is characterized by an economy of expression, disarmingly straightforward language, gentle humor, irony—which is often self-directed—arresting imagery, and a subdued but persistent undertone of existential angst. His subject matter ranges from the trivial (e.g., "the catchy little song on the radio" in "A Mystery") to the profound (e.g., the torment of human existence in "The Task"). Despite, or perhaps precisely because of, the lack of pretense of his language and the varied nature of his subject matter, the poet succeeds in infusing even his shortest poems with an elevated meaning.

Hav's metaphorical language is often unique and can leave an indelible impression on the reader. In "Human Mentality," for instance, the poet likens the human mind to a hotel, in which the rationality of the conscious mind, embodied by the "clean well-dressed" front-desk clerk is merely a superficial façade that is at odds with the other, far less rational denizens of the hotel, from the Neanderthal night clerk to the motley array of occasionally sinister residents. "The Fools" depicts the babbling of empty-headed, opinionated people as "a stupid door banging / in the wind" that impedes intelligent discourse and hampers rational thinking.

The connotative effect of several of the poems in this volume is occasionally heightened by the historical personalities that Hav introduces into his poetry. Although not mentioned by name, Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875)—complete with a quote from Andersen's autobiography—makes an appearance as the pre-occupied observer of his own torchlight parade in "Illumination" to corroborate the poet's assertion that: "Some words are more beautiful than the experience they stand for." The Icelandic Nobel Laureate Halldor Kiljan Laxness (1902-1998) is commemorated in a moving tribute in which the poet sees the recently deceased Icelander in a café in Naples ("Laxness in Naples"). Hav pays tribute to fellow Danish writer Erik Knudsen (b. 1922) in his brief "Often It's Been a Comfort" in which Hav deftly captures the essence of the creative process by citing Knudsen's own words: "I'm not a poet / he said, only / when I'm writing."

There is no shortage of absurd surrealism here. The already mentioned "Laxness in Naples" is a good case in point. And in the title poem, "We Are Here," the poet is "lost in a strange part of town," surrounded by well-meaning inhabitants who in answer to his question of where he is, gesture toward the ground and reply simply, "We are here!" There is a detached, dream-like quality to this poem that the reader will encounter in other selections from this collection as well. This aura of unreality recurs in "Visit from My Father," in which the poet's deceased father pays a call and imparts the advice that it is the small things in life that matter, such as becoming "a decent person." As an ironic illustration of his advice, the deceased refers to the garbagemen on the street below and concludes the poem by saying, "They are busy, . . . , that's good / Do something!" This celebration of the quotidian mirrors the conclusion of the ten-line "Let Us not Contribute to the Smell of Fear," "and anyone, who each morning undertakes / to get up, deserves respect."

The agony and frustration of being a poet emerge clearly in several of Niels Hav's poems. "Epigram," the volume's two-stanza concluding poem expresses this most succinctly in its first stanza: "You can spend an entire life / in the company of words / not ever finding / the right one." In "Aphasia" the poet even goes so far as to concede that words are artificial constructs that can complicate the act of communicating and lead us away from our common humanity: "it is possible to make contact with caresses, / but everything becomes more abstract."

Hav also addresses political, societal, and religious problems in several of the poems in this volume. These aspects are best exemplified by two poems that are printed adjacent to one another in this collection. "You Know—It" expresses the guilt that the poet feels for being part of a generation that is leaving its children a world full of problems. This poem concludes with the disheartening observation: "Each day ever more is piled up / of, you know—it." "Can the world be improved? First we'll have to change / human nature. There's cause for pessimism. / Evil triumphs and hate appears clothed / in religion, or in the latest political uniform," are the opening lines of "Arguments," the following poem, which is suffused with the doubt and uncertainty that are only adumbrated in "You Know—It." And yet, at the end of "Arguments," the poet feels compelled to admit that he is one of "the naive who mosey on / and want the impossible."

Despite the pessimism and despair of many of the poems, there are counterbalancing doses of optimism and humor scattered throughout the collection that amply mitigate what might otherwise be a somber reading experience. "Women of Copenhagen," for instance, begins with the whimsical confession "I have once again fallen in love / this time with five different women during a ride / on the number 40 bus." All hopes of love are, however, destroyed as, one by one, the objects of the poet's heart's desire get off the bus leaving the poet alone to philosophize in the concluding stanza: "I continued for two more stops before giving up. / It always ends like that: you stand alone / on the kerb, sucking on a cigarette, / wound up and mildly unhappy."

Niels Hav's We Are Here touches all facets of what it means to be a sentient human being in an imperfect and impermanent world. Readers will find much that is familiar to them in this collection but will experience the familiar through a different lens, one that can help put the world into a fresher and, possibly, more lucid perspective.

Frank Hugus