Average Neuroses by Marianne Koluda Hansen
Translated from Danish by Michael Goldman
Published by Spyuten Duyvil Press 2017
ISBN 978-1-944682-35-4
158 pages
Dual-Language Danish-English
Conversational poetry that treads a razor’s edge between humor, suffering and redemption.
The whole blooming and exasperating world is here in Hansen’s delightfully associative poems, translated from Danish by Michael Goldman with great élan. Hansen’s voice is full of wit, longing, irony (both personal and political), and tender detail about the absurdity of being human. Thrillingly, Hansen has zero interest in presenting herself as an admirable person, which makes me deeply cherish her poems, and helps me to go on being my likewise unadmirable self in this beautiful and impossible world.
—Patrick Donnelly, poet and translator, author of The Charge, and Nocturnes of the Brothel of Ruin
Hansen writes movingly about insecurity and anxiety. Her voice is a solitary one, but she taps into a most universal desire—to be accepted by those around us. At the core of the collection is the poet’s struggle to maintain an emotional balance in the face of the extreme beauty and pain of everyday life.
–Leah Browning, Editor
Apple Valley Review: A Journal of Contemporary Literature
With skillful irony Hansen skewers pretentiousness, including herself as a target. It is liberating to read an author who can be self-deprecating and laugh along with the reader. Then she can turn the mood on a dime, to seriousness so poignant that the laughter or smile stiffens on your face. Highly recommended.
–Herdis Møllehave, Aktuelt
READ A POEM FROM THE BOOK:
The Truth
I was about twelve
when I got the feeling
that the thing we call truth
probably wasn’t so straightforward
that was when the proposal for
land reform
was going to be voted on in a referendum
and our mailbox was
stuffed
with propaganda
for and against
and when I read it
I thought that it all sounded good
and that didn’t make any sense
but I realized
that the dirty reds
were not mysterious shady beings
but were among others
the parents
of the most popular girl in our building
and I discovered
that communists
probably were not grumbling men in
long black coats after all
who painted graffiti at night
and I more sensed than understood
that never again would I be able to
see a cause from all sides
at one time
and make a comparison
and I still cannot
discern things
but it’s hard to let go of
the feeling that I always can
look up the answer
at the bottom of page eighty-eight
and who’s the murderer at
the end of the crime novel
that you just have to
do enough research
make sure you talk things through
rewind
and see what happened
go to a primal therapist
and get hypnotized
so you can remember an event
from your parents’ early childhood
then all the pieces
will suddenly fall into place
and the myth of
the root of the problem
turns into a more and more
painful acquaintance
gradually as
the information explosion
hurls us farther and farther
out into space
but I have discovered
two things:
that the truth can never be found
only formed
by oneself
with those materials
that are on hand
and that that is no
excuse
not to try
By Marianne Koluda Hansen ©1980 “Sandheden”
Translated by Michael Favala Goldman
This translation was nominated for a Pushcart Prize and published by Apple Valley Review in 2016.
