“What is the relation between a poem and the place where the poem is conceived?” Questioned Fredrik Hagen (b.1990) in the preface of Fjell Hav Poesi and expected readers to search for an answer, or at least some clues in this anthology.
“There are two poles of possible answers to this question. Either it could be proved that poems have nothing at all to do with the places where they were written, that they are pure expression originated from the inner human being (if you believe such thing exists), therefore poems are always more universal than being Chinese or Norwegian, or it could be that the place is utterly crucial for what to be written, that the place decides not only how a poem is written, but what, when all is said and done, is possible to write or think about.”
Bergen is the second biggest and the oldest city in Norway. As a coast city facing the continent, Bergen is always a cultural window of Norway. It’s the hometown of the Norwegian playwright and poet Cecilie Løveid; it also hosts the Bergen Poetry Festival organised by Tomas Espedal and Henning H. Bergsvåg; Every month, there are all kinds of poetry forums and events such as Poesidigg and Lyrikksalong. The latter curated for this anthology a group of poets over a wide age span and a huge diversity of styles. They represent, if not all, some of the best contemporary poets in Bergen.
All the selected poems in this book are translated by Ben Wenhou Yu. With the help of almost all the contributing Norwegian poets, he also managed to translate from his mother tongue Chinese to Norwegian. But it is nevertheless difficult to reproduce the prosody and aesthetic of the original, thus the translations are presented alongside the originals in the book as reference for those who can read both.
The book is designed by Pan Yanrong, the Most Beautiful Books from All Over the World prize winner.
Fjell Hav Poesi is supported by Bergen Municipality and Bergesenstiftelsen
Fjell Hav Poesi (Mountain Sea Poetry) is a poetry anthology co-curated by Northing and Lyrikksalong and published by Kinakaal Forlag. It features 7 poets from Bergen and 7 from Shanghai and bridges the two cities at the opposite ends of the Eurasian Continent intangibly with poetry.
The title of the book came from the names of the two cities; Bergen, on the west coast of Norway, is known as the 'city of seven mountains’, whilst Shanghai hosts the biggest harbour in the world, ‘The two Chinese characters in the city's name are 上 (shàng/zan, "upon") and 海 (hǎi/hae, "sea"), together meaning "Upon the Sea”.’ (Wikipedia)
Shanghai is the hometown of Ben and Yilei, the co-founders of Northing. Not unlike Bergen in Nowray, Shanghai has, for a long time, been the most important stage for modern poetry in China. It was considered the birthplace of modern Chinese poetry, which is also known as “New Poetry”. In recent years, the “Poetry Comes to Museum” series events curated by Wang Yin at the Shanghai Minsheng Art Museum cultivated a large group of young poetry enthusiasts. For more than 7 years, he has been inviting renowned poets from all over the world to Shanghai to meet the young readers. He’s also the one who recommended most poets from Shanghai in this anthology.
POETS FROM BERGEN
Tomas Espedal 托马斯·埃斯佩达尔 / Cecilie Løveid 西西莉·鲁维德 / Kristian Hæggernes 克里斯蒂安·海格纳尔斯 / Henning H. Bergsvåg 贺宁·H·贝尔格沃格斯 / Tora Sanden Døskeland 图拉·桑顿·朵斯克兰 / Katrine Heiberg 卡特琳娜·海伯格 / Fredrik Hagen 弗雷德里克·哈根
POETS FROM SHANGHAI
徐芜城 Xu Wucheng / 海 岸 Hai An / 王 寅 Wang Yin / 胡 桑 Hu Sang / 刘晓萍 Liu Xiaoping / 包慧怡 Bao Huiyi / 秦三澍 Qin Sanshu