Butterfly Valley: A Requiem
by Inger Christensen
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Inger Christensen, often cited as a Nobel contender and one of Europe's most revered poets, is perhaps best known for her groundbreaking work Det (It), a cycle of poems published in 1969. Her first book published in the U.S., alphabet (New Directions, 2001), met with a tremendous response: "Seductive," said Boston Review. "A visionary reincarnation of the natural world in the atomic age," wrote The Chicago Review. Butterfly Valley: A Requiem collects four medium-length works, each startling show more for its beauty and formal innovation. "Butterfly Valley" is a sonnet cycle in which the glowing colors and beauty of butterflies are described, and yet also their obvious fragility and mortality: memory is uncovered in the poem like the fluttering of their wings. In "Watersteps," the fountains and piazzas of Rome coalesce, brought alive by the imagination in the poem's shifting rhythms, lines, and overall structure. In "Poem on Death" the poet seeking immortality faces the whiteness of the page as the blankness of death:,"it feels so odd/ immodest to think/ about death when no one/ you know has died/ it means that each time/ you look at yourself in the mirror/ you look death in the eye/ without crying/ like a clear and fully/ comprehensible answer/ but to questions/ you dare not ask." "Meeting" describes a "coming together," yet examines our failure to connect and the ability of language to overcome this. It is written in extended sections, with pathos, anger, and sly humor. show lessTags
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51+ Works 836 Members
Writer Inger Christensen was born in Vejle, Denmark on January 16, 1935. She enrolled in medical school, but had to withdraw due to financial reasons. She received a teaching degree with a concentration in German and mathematics from the Aarhus College of Education. She was a teacher for a few years before becoming a full-time writer. She wrote show more poems, essays, short stories, children's books, and plays. Her works include It, Alphabet, Butterfly Valley: A Requiem, The Painted Room, and Azorno. She received numerous awards throughout her career including the 1994 Nordic Authors' Prize. She died on January 2, 2009 at the age of 73. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Awards
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Schecks Bücher (92)
Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 2004 (English collection) (English collection)
Classifications
- Genres
- Poetry, Fiction and Literature
- DDC/MDS
- 839.81174 — Literature & rhetoric German & related literatures Other Germanic literatures Danish and Norwegian literatures Danish Danish poetry 1900–2000 Late 20th century 1945–2000
- LCC
- PT8176.13 .H727 .A6 — Language and Literature German, Dutch and Scandinavian literatures Danish literature Individual authors or works 1961-2000
- BISAC
Statistics
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- 93
- Popularity
- 345,293
- Rating
- (4.37)
- Languages
- 5 — Danish, English, German, Multiple languages, Swedish
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook
- ISBNs
- 15
