Book record
The mute
Lars Amund Vaage
Translated from Norwegian by Kenneth Steven
The Mute, by Lars Amund Vaage and translated by Kenneth Steven, is a Norwegian poetry collection that seems to begin from the problem of speech withheld. A mute figure in poetry is never merely silent. Silence can be disability, refusal, trauma, privacy, resistance, or a form of knowledge that language cannot reach. I would read this book for its attention to what expression costs. Vaage is also known as a novelist, and that narrative awareness may shape the poems’ sense of character and situation. Steven’s translation carries the Norwegian title into English with a starkness that leaves room around it. The collection seems valuable for readers interested in quietness that is not emptiness, and in poems that ask whether speaking is always the highest form of presence.
- Published
- 2013
- Publisher
- Shearsman Books
- Language
- Norwegian
- Country
- Norway
- ISBN
- 9781848612600