Nordbrandt Introduction

By Thom Satterlee The following poems by Danish poet Henrik Nordbrandt (1945—) find their specific images in nature, but transform them into something more like a dream or daydream. The rain, the flowers, the moonlight, and the sunlight featured here may be common to us, but the poet’s treatment of them is anything but common. By his magical way of thinking, the poet finds himself responsible for the rain that won’t stop falling; similarly, the sun glistening on a branch becomes the culprit for a spilled cup of coffee; and the low sun, in the last poem, causes all kinds of damage—from a broken sawmill to torn wallpaper. This kind of “dream logic” is typical of Nordbrandt, and one of the reasons I have found his work so compelling to translate over the last twelve years. In his more than twenty volumes of poetry, he is constantly seeing the world around him then transforming it into the fantastic. This quality may help explain why Nordbrandt remains among the most popular contemporary Danish poets in his home country and throughout Europe. ~~~~~ Poems by Henrik Nordbrandt