AshehougAgency

The Last Firelander

Innocence

Indeed. We consider ourselves ironists
Yet it is cynics we are… Survivors
in an era of the passionless. Everyone is suspect
Everyone confesses. No one is left innocent
Nor is anyone allowed to bear his guilt
We confess guilt so as not to bear it
and know no other innocence that the life
not yet seduced … And yet
innocence is the last thing to tempt the weary
The last thing to titillate the jaded. Innocence
- the only power that can imitate creation
Bereft of self-disgust, the one thing in us
that can bear vulnerability, without being degraded
Innocence cannot be exposed, It reminds us
of who we once were and of what we have lost
Therefore it has to be ridiculed, scorned
Torn down. Be like the others are like the others

(Translation by Annabelle Despard)

Stein Mehren is back with yet more wonderful poems; firm and distinct in their form. In this collection we find shorter and more intense poems than before, but also long, expository, narrative poems. Above all we find poems where elements from our historically experienced everyday existence are lifted out into the light, observed and imparted as signs; signs that there is something great and enigmatic hidden beneath what our senses are capable of registering.

“Nothing but highlights… he writes poems that grip hold of us, make us feel a gnawing of grief and – yes, a euphoric joy”
(Dagbladet )

Click here for English sample translation.

Stein Mehren: Biography and bibliography

First published: 2002, Aschehoug Fiction