The Sight of Light • The Sound of Clouds • The Touch of Skin: [Senses Quintet: 3, 4 & 5]

About the Book

This new translation of three collections from one ofDenmark's leading poets completes the remarkable Senses Quintet in English.

Pia Tafdrup has published over 20 books in Danish since her first collection appeared in 1981, including widely admired sequences of themed collections. The latest of these is a series of five books focussing on the human senses, herSenses Quintet(2014-2022), which the critic Carsten Palmer Schale has called 'a cathedral of the soul' and 'the best collection of poems written in Scandinavia in the past 20 years'.

Bloodaxe published David McDuff's translation of the first two collections in the quintet,The Taste of SteelandThe Smell of Snow, in one volume in 2021. This edition brings together his translations of the third, fourth and fifth parts,The Sight of Light,The Sound of CloudsandThe Touch of Skin.

All parts of life are mediated through the five senses in the five books, including the way of the world and the losses that people sustain during the course of their lives the disappearance of friends and family members, but also the erosion of control of one's own existence. The themes of ecology, war and conflict are never far away, and there is a constant recognition of the circular nature of life, the interplay of the generations.

Table of Contents:
THE SIGHT OF LIGHT (2018) I The darkness dreams the sun out 19 Birth light 20 Bonfire 21 From the bedrock 22 Tokyo by night 24 Desire is born night after night 25 The eyes, the planets of the skull 28 The katsura tree II Burning point 31 Shoals 32 Narcisa grows keen on technology 34 Expectations 36 Burning glass 37 Feng Shui 38 The other side 40 Swallows III Mirror 42 The nightdress 43 Mirror image 45 Bread and circuses 47 My sister with a halo 49 The camera’s caress IV Ordeal by fire 53 Fiery sword 54 Icarus 57 The fire is mother to the ash 59 Forest fires 60 Flight V Life is a drama 63 Jacques-Louis David: The Death of Marat 66 Pablo Picasso: Guernica 68 Frida Kahlo: The Wounded Deer 70 Gerhard Richter: Five Doors 73 Anselm Kiefer: Starfall VI Inspection 77 Arctic wilderness 78 The bull’s gaze 80 Angry composer 81 School for architects 82 The eye of the Cyclops 84 The borders between us 86 Sightseeing spot VII The shadow of a dream 89 Perpetual state of emergency 90 Night-blind 92 Librarian in grey weather 94 Picture stream 96 My view reduced 97 The inner cinema 99 Blind trust VIII Transparency 103 Aura 104 From Barents’ final voyage 106 Prelude to coupling 107 Veil 108 The rainbow IX The soul in the eye 110 Carpe diem 111 Your gaze meets mine 113 Spark of life 114 Embrace 116 Shone through 117 To make women and men shine 118 Passage, light * THE SOUND OF CLOUDS (2020) I Prelude. The sounds are simply here 123 Hear with eye and heart 124 Clouds don’t stop 125 Danish daily sounds 128 The conch shell 130 The sense of hearing never switches off II Acoustic alphabet 134 Harmony 135 The sound of the name 137 Newborn language 139 We are children, we shout 141 Rain 143 Many-stringed instrument 145 Listening inward III The pain threshold of eardrums 149 Thunderclap 150 The Devil’s interval 152 The street’s epicentre 154 It could be gunfire 156 Beethoven maltreated IV Resonance rooms 158 Absence of sound 159 Tinnitus 161 Seasons intercepted 163 Do I hear the radio? 165 Song for a foetus V Nobody owns the clouds 169 Nobody owns the clouds. For Glenn Gould 171 Star-pulse. For Patti Smith 173 O Superwoman. For Laurie Anderson 175 Soul on a journey. For Brian Eno 177 ‘Simple Song Number 3’. For Sumi Jo VI Redevelopments 180 Bees in Linden 181 Gong 183 Saunte Number 17 185 The sewing-machine 187 The bang before it comes VII Out of a mouth 190 No one has seen God 191 Edvard Munch: The Scream 192 Your voice 194 My voice 197 The deaf seamstress 199 Like two people present 201 Authentic voice? 203 Hephaestus forges 205 From the realm of the dead VIII Sound pictures 209 The room drawn 210 Through the open window 212 The bells of City Hall 214 Stillness before the hurricane 217 Unwanted sounds 218 Centre 219 The deer and I IX Postlude. Freedom exists 223 The left hand’s road to freedom 224 Clouds touch me 226 White noise 228 Van Gogh’s ear 233 Speak softly 234 Pauses 235 The stillness is coming * THE TOUCH OF SKIN (2022) I Yearning sits beneath the skin 240 Favourite word 241 Have only my body 243 Butterfly wings 245 My skin my limit 248 Embrace II Confrontation with elements 250 The wind loves me 251 The water transforms 253 Fire and song 255 Earth poem 257 The cannula through the skin III The hands 260 My mother’s blind cousin 261 In my pocket 263 Bread 265 The rose I hold 267 Bodily visitation 269 Touching decay 271 Massage IV Fight 275 Fight club 276 Local anaesthetic 277 Under the skin behind the ribs 279 Battles 280 Scars 281 My knee 283 The Chernobyl wind V Five materials. A catalogue of touch 286 Trees, people 287 The marble ball 289 The hand finds its way to the glass 291 The lady holds the unicorn’s horn. A gobelin 293 Nefertiti. A plaster bust VI Presence 297 The star place 298 The fingers meet the world 300 Child and ladybird 302 The feet like sand 304 The enigma of the flesh 306 Capsized robin 307 Today I got the explanation 309 The body feels the liquids leave it 311 Round the table VII Absence 314 Embraces, eternity 315 In constant reconstruction of a dance 317 The bat effect 321 The hand-shy child 322 Gentle whispering VIII Caress 326 Your hand and mine 327 With a creature in his arms 328 The bench in Gudhjem 328 Your face 331 You are a sky 332 Crazy and in love 334 The horizon IX The solar system of hope 336 The solar system of hope 337 My son has built a fire 338 A landscape awakes in me 339 We move the night 343 The weight of a life * NOTES 349 The Sight of Light 350 The Sound of Clouds 351 The Touch of Skin

About the Author :

Pia Tafdrup, which was published in David McDuff's English translation by Bloodaxe in 2001. Also in 2001, she was appointed a Knight of the Order of Dannebrog, and in 2006 she received the Nordic Prize from the Swedish Academy.

Review :

In The Taste of Steel and The Smell of Snow, the first two volumes in a new five-part series of collections relating to the five senses by Danish poet Pia Tafdrup, the starting point is this: the essentiality of taste and smell, and their ability to puncture through the isolation of the mind. In our predominantly visual society, Tafdrup goes back to the two senses which, many argue, we are un-learning. The result is that the poet does not only look at their place in everyday sensualities, but also – and perhaps firstly – prods their limits, pushes their boundaries to see how far into the spiritual they would allow her to stretch.

This book compiles two poetry collections written by Danish poet Pia Tafdrup and translated into English by David McDuff. The poems are linked by the senses, with most referencing one, or often more of the senses, from the taste of language and tears to the smell of rain and cleaning products. The stunning descriptions of the natural world throughout both collections stood out for me... This is for you if you are looking for challenging, modern poetry in translation to add to your collection.