The funeral of Knud Sørensen, great Danish author of more than sixty works of poetry and prose, was held last week on October 5, and the sky cried. It poured, not out of sadness, I suspect, since Knud was 94, and had had a life in all respects fully lived. But it is fitting to mourn the passing of a man who illuminated many of his brothers and sisters by the way he held and expressed himself.
Knud entered my life through his books in 1996, when I was living in Denmark, and not too far from a library, where I chanced on his work in the poetry section. I was immediately struck by his intimacy with the agricultural way of life and landscape, the farmers’ experience which he gained through his daily work as a land surveyor. Unfortunately, he often was surveying small family farms which were being sold for development or impacted in other ways by industry and society. He communicated both the dignity and the tragedy of the farming life in his poems, stories, essays, and novels.
When I first read Knud’s depictions of small farms, and their clash with modernization, I realized that I was a product of this evolution. The house and the housing development I grew up in stand on the land of a previous farm. My hometown once had 83 farms. There is only one left today, but there are numerous shopping centers and tens of thousands of houses.
While still a surveyor, Knud published his first poetry book in 1965. He went on to help found an author’s collective publishing house, Atticus Press, and he was a prolific book reviewer. He also became an active mentor of younger Danish writers and a literary historian. Like a walking museum, he researched and documented the important writers from the rural area where he lived, winning particular notoriety for his biography of Steen Steensen Blicher. In a country often dominated by the rich cultural life in the capital, Copenhagen, Knud was a tireless advocate for rural art and culture, serving on the board of the library and arts council in his hometown, Nykøbing Mors.
I first met Knud in 2014 in the gardens and grounds outside the mansion of Sofienholm, near Copenhagen. They were holding a gallery show of art accompanied by poetry, and Knud’s poems were among them. I was lucky enough to get a free ticket to the reception from poet Benny Andersen, who was invited, but not attending. At the time I was in Denmark working with Benny on translating his poems.
I located Knud standing alone outside the mansion and approached him. I introduced myself in Danish as a literary translator working with Benny Andersen. I told Knud that he was my second favorite Danish poet, and that I loved his farming poems especially. I recited a poem that was a particular favorite, Only the Middle of May, and he never forgot that. Many years later he would bring up in conversation how surprised he was that a stranger from the US would come up to him and recite a poem that he could hardly recall himself! I told him I was interested in translating his work, and he seemed happy about the idea.
After a few email exchanges and a receiving a rights permission letter, I set about selecting from Knud’s poetry a collection of agricultural themed poems, which became our first book of translated poetry, Farming Dreams. It is a thin volume that packs a historical, poetic punch.
For the past two decades, Knud took daily walks to the fjord near his home, where he would sit on a bench and ‘receive’ poems that he felt were waiting for him there. These walks resulted in collections of poetry nearly annually for the last years of his life, many of them conveying a sense of connection to nature and the fact of aging and mortality. These poems I selected from for the 2020 bi-lingual poetry book, New and Selected Poems of Knud Sørensen.
Besides these two books, Knud’s poetry and prose also appeared in such esteemed pages as The Harvard Review, The Columbia Review and Rattle.
Knud kept careful track of his steps on his walks, tallying at least 8000 steps each day into his 90s, with the excess of 8000 steps going towards his ‘bank,’ from which he carefully withdrew as his walks became shorter and less frequent. I have often wondered this past week how there is no one to receive the poems at the fjord now. Maybe someday someone new will come along to take up where Knud left off.
One day I was visiting Knud, and we were getting ready to go out. It had rained earlier, and we were on the second floor of his house. As we were about to leave, I slipped past Knud to exit first, onto the little patio, which had quarry tile, as did the stairs down to the walk. The tile was so slippery my feet went right out from under me, and I nonchalantly grabbed the railing with both hands to keep from sliding down the stairs. I turned back to Knud without making a fuss, suggesting that we go through the door downstairs, since it was a bit slick. I have often thought back on that moment as the time I saved Knud’s life.
As Knud’s poems become available in English, he and I performed together at his hometown library. It was a lively crowd. After the readings, an audience member asked Knud how it felt to be translated. This was late in his career, when Knud was 88. Knud responded, “My father used to say, if you keep at it long enough, you can become King of Sweden. I never wanted to be King of Sweden. But now I have a book for sale in the United States.”
It was meaningful for Knud to have a connection outside of Denmark, and to have his writing translated. And I think it has been meaningful for his readers too. I imagine that other readers, as I have, find in his writing an awakened sense of valuing history and of our tenuous and bittersweet place in nature.
When I learned of Knud’s death, I wrote the following poem in his honor, and the poem was read today at his funeral. I hope you will find in my words a bit of Knud’s spirit.
Ære være hans minde.
That day arrived
for Knud Sørensen, 1928-2022
We do not come from nowhere
There was someone here before us
Who planted seeds
Put down roots
Looked at the sky
And tried to predict the future.
It is so easy to forget
Or assume
That everything starts now.
We are all that came before
However shameful and joyful
Which we may never live up to.
The story is indelible
Closer than our fingerprints
We are constantly leaving
On everything
Barely a thought to the future
So caught up in now
Until redeemed by a story.
Knud was a storyteller.
He knew
As few of us can
When a narrative bears weight.
Knud did not write for himself
He wrote for the story
He wrote for the timelessness
In the story
So that we would remember
We are more than just this.
Den dag kom
for Knud Sørensen, 1928-2022
Vi kommer ikke ingensteds fra
Der var nogen her før os
Som såede frø
Som satte rødder
Kiggede på himlen
Og forsøgte at spå fremtiden.
Det er så let at glemme
Eller antage
At alting begynder lige nu.
Vi er skabt af alt, som kom før os
Ligemeget hvor skamfuldt eller glædeligt
Noget vi måske aldrig kan leve op til.
Historien er uudslettelig
Nærmere end vores fingeraftryk
Som vi bestandig efterlader
På alt
Næppe en tanke til fremtiden
Så optaget af nutiden
Indtil forløst af en fortælling.
Knud var en fortæller
Han vidste
Som få af os kan
Når en fortælling bærer vægt.
Han skrev ikke for sig selv
Han skrev for fortællingen
For tidløsheden
I fortællingen
For at vi kan huske
Vi er mere end kun det her.
