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.