Inheritance – Selected Poems of Cecil Bødker
translated from Danish by Michael Goldman
Published by Spuyten Duyvil Press
ISBN 978-1-947980-82-2
$15.00 142 pages
Danish poet Cecil Bødker writes, “Shouldn’t we own the stars, we who govern the order of all things, shouldn’t we each own a star?” Her answer – and ours – can be found in this impressive collection, where translator Michael Goldman ushers the reader into Bødker’s sparse, unrhymed poems, which portray natural phenomena mirrored in the multifaceted conflicts of the human mind: “Since we live in surfeit we forget what life is.” Her poems convey an essential reflection on the source of the alienation of modern humanity: “Everything in my beautiful garden I own but none of it is mine.” This exceptional translation enables a large audience to enjoy her universal and persistently relevant poetry.
– Nete Schmidt, Ph.D Dept of Scandinavian Studies, University of Wisconsin
In its original Danish, the poetry collection “Inheritance” is filled with intricate landscape imagery, music, alliterations and challenging word combinations. Translator/poet Michael Goldman stays true to the rich, vivid pictures Bødker paints as she explores this world we have inherited, from the tiniest “whiskers of a bee” to our universal place in the cosmos. These translations read as naturally as original poetry, and this bilingual edition allows us to get a glimpse of how Goldman recreates Bødker’s unique voice. No small feat.
– Translator/poet Nina Sokol
