An entrancing poem on babyhood commands our devotion this Translation Tuesday–a fitting muse for poet and critic Hanna Riisager, whose first collection wields overtly feminine symbols to subvert gender norms. In H-A-N-N-A, precisely translated from the Swedish by Kristina Andersson Bicher, a small subject wields a gravitational pull, overwhelming us in equal parts bewilderment and wonderment.
You are a plank you
are a bridge you are a bronze
railing. You are a
landing you are a
nook. You are a ramp
for baby carriages.
Head down feet up
Child’s position.
Perpendicular dominance
trimmed in lead. An
H in the heart.
Think: the scope
of this walk!
Someone is climbing
in varnished shoes
up and down
the image of a staircase.
Gray like tweed
you weather into it.
Blissfully mute,
infatuated babbling
from a marble mouth.
Translated from the Swedish by Kristina Andersson Bicher
Hanna Riisager is a Swedish poet and critic living in Stockholm. She has an MA in literary studies from Stockholm University. She is one of the founders of the feminist publishing house Dockhaveri förlag, which published her first full-length poetry collection, För Kvalia (2015). För Kvalia was short-listed for the Swedish Authors’ Association debutante prize (Katapult prize) in 2016. Excerpts from För Kvalia have previously been translated into Romanian, French and Greek. Work translated into English is forthcoming in the Four Way Review.
Kristina Andersson Bicher is a poet, translator, and essayist. Her work has been published in AGNI, The Atlantic, Ploughshares, Colorado Review, Brooklyn Rail, Harvard Review, Hayden’s Ferry, Plume, Narrative, and others. She is author of the poetry collection She-Giant in the Land of Here-We-Go-Again (MadHat Press 2020) and Just Now Alive (FLP 2014), as well as a translation of Swedish poet Marie Lundquist’s I Walk Around Gathering Up My Garden for the Night (Bitter Oleander Press 2020).
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