with movements from us
from the mortal
to the already crossed
they who sing our songs
they who remember our lives
In 186 verses, Mats Söderlund catalogues the natural phenomena of Sweden's primeval northern woodlands. The poem leads its reader down overgrown paths, beyond the flickering of leaves and lichen, to meet "the dead": a troop of scattered fates that populate the Nordic landscape in the forms of a speaking fog, a tinkling drizzle, a faltering wind. It is this swarm of spectral destinies that the poem sets out to praise, and to mourn.
Shining of rain and gnawing of sorrow, cast from metal, snow, charcoal dust, surgical nails, and ice cold waters, Söderlund's poetry is the fragile tether to a world and past that threatens to slip through our fingers, and which no generation who seeks to survive can disclaim.
Autorentext
Mats Söderlund was awarded the Swedish Writers' Union's prestigious Catapult Award for best literary debut in 1992, and has since received numerous literary awards and scholarships. He describes himself as "a forester from the north" with roots deeply entrenched in Nordic folklore and the Northern narrative tradition. He has released seven collections of poetry, as well as works of fiction and nonfiction. Söderlund holds a Bachelor of Science in Social Work and served as Chairman of the Swedish Writers' Union between 2005 and 2012.