Between political art and the mystery of life

Nominated for the Nordic Council´s Literature Award

Stein Mehren
Imperiet lukker sig (The Empire is Closing)
Aschehoug Forlag. N

By Kim Simonsen

Stein Mehren’s Imperiet lukker sig is characterised by sorrow, disaster and ruin. At first sight the book seems impressive. Its form is direct and easy to read, and yet the collection seems to be divided into two parts. The good part is the existential section, dealing with cruelty, love and the mystery of life. It contains durable and masterly images, many of which are intensely beautiful, such as: „A child who does not grow up/In another person’s sight, is a child/Who does not cast a shadow. It carries/Its dreams like shredded night-time wings“.
The less successful part could be regarded as a study of the civilisation of our times, or as political/philosophical poetry with Mehren foaming at the mouth as he launches himself at topics such as Europe, Western cultural history, the Balkans, and the danger that our civilisation will form new empires. Despite the sympathetic reflections of these poems, they are formless and over-anxious to convey a message, with thought processes overwhelming any poetic tension and destroying any sense of focus, such as in „Virgil. Poet of the Empire“: „Born and raised in the province, in a/Fertile village so small and self-sufficient (…)“ This is no more poetic than the introduction to a Norwegian textbook on Rome. And he goes on and on in the same vein: „Was he the Homer of Italy, a child of the dawn …“ The form of this long, hagiographic poem seems obsolete – like other similar ones.
In other poems one feels that the state of the world has led Mehren to forget the difference between poetry and prose. Too many of the poems are like plans for future essay collections, with Mehren forcing our thoughts into „emotions“. The result is that these poems are more like philosophical broken prose. A sense of social commitment takes over, and you start yawning because they remind you of books like „Empire“ by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri.
Mehren presents tremendous conclusions, which are imposed on the innocent reader. In many cases the final sentence ruins the poems, with Mehren finally “saying” the thing he has been leading up to all the time. The result is that such poems collapse like a house of cards, such as this poem about power: „Or is it them who have grown to resemble us/Tame … Greedy and brutal“. What a shame – this is too much like the 1970s, with messages shouted at us like propaganda and scattered on us like fliers from above.
The best poems in the collection, demonstrating that Mehren is a good Scandinavian poet, are the ones about the existential condition of Man – such as this example: „Early in the morning before the traffic/Begins, the motorways sometimes/Look like deserted, empty ruins/After a global disaster (…)“
In these poems the form is tighter, and the topics are crystal-clear melancholy and the way love alternates rapid­ly between cruelty and meaning. These poems are reminiscent of Leonard Cohen’s songs about love and hate. They are full of pathos, indicating another path very far from gruesome political (contemporary) art, more in the direction of the wise, beautiful art of the humanities. At his best, Mehren reminds you of the masterly Tomas Tranströmer. At his worst, of an opinionated and unpoetic Michael Moore.

Kim Simonsen is currently studying for an MA (Research Degree) in Scandinavian Literature. He also writes on cultural issues

Translated by Nick Wrigley