AshehougAgency

Look at Me Now

This is perhaps Gulliksen’s bravest and most personal collection of poems. The opening poem is based upon a counting device on the internet that gives a continuous update of the world’s population. The I-person in the poem is overwhelmed by the world and all the complex interconnections he himself is part of and is forced to relate himself to: The multitude of individuals, the flow of time and the circulation of money. At the same time he tries to fit himself in as an individual, to hang on to his individuality, so to speak, and to delimit himself from the world around him.

Gulliksen’s language reveals a great amount of sensitivity towards these issues. That the human consciousness is unlimited and can absorb everything, at the same time as a person’s radius of action is limited by the present and ever-changing aspects of life. Thus the title, which can be understood as a child’s words. The I-person in the poems lays himself bare to the world, almost like a child. The result is beautiful. The connection between the individual and the 6 billion people is made through the close relations, and many of the poems are about love for one’s family, obviously based upon personal experience, and about the vulnerability associated with people close to you falling ill.

First published: 2005, Aschehoug Fiction
Geir Gulliksen: Biography and bibliography