Saturday 29 September 2012

A poem by the Norwegian writer
Aina Villanger (b. 1979)


1

in night-drenched outaness yer laid gentle-like
in mother-sea tissue yer eyes awl glood shut and
hands clenched like blind gazes inter deep water

hovverin like some plankton along the sea bed
yer swayed inna flora ev eternity
surroundid by bubbles in ecstasy en calm
yer wez nourisht by a cord
that inflatid yer
a link between yerself and wots firm
joind to the earth yer mother

yeah without yer knowin it
yer dreamt ev the land with sun
wot came through the chink
gave yer yeller trumpet rays
like wot mornins do en
woke yer from yer seevin warmf
tricklin red in sparklin black

Villanger writes poems that show traces of dialect/sociolect by use of unusual, often phonetic spellings. The English translation uses the language spoken in the area where I grew up, north-west London, back in the early 1950s.
 

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