Pia Tafdrup is one of Denmark’s leading poets. She 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, her Senses 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 Steel and The 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 Clouds and The 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.
‘The main theme is of a deeply existential nature. How it is to be in the world. What it's like to use your five senses to perceive, and to some extent, incorporate the world. Through taste, sight, smell, sound and touch. […] It’s no coincidence that touch – the sensation of the skin being touched – is the last in the suite. In Tafdrup's universe, touch is above the other senses. The skin frames the individual and therefore sets a limit to the self from the environment. It is the human conditions of life she has immersed herself in; existence and its more or less concrete forms of appearance. Earth, beach, sea, sky, fire – and human as a function of these elements. Like body, as language, as memory. It is in the meeting, collision and interaction between nature and culture, between discipline and sexuality, between the depths and heights of sensuality and the details of the everyday world.' – Carsten Palmer Schale, Opulens magasin, 2023
Pia Tafdrup’s previous series of themed collections was The Salamander Quartet (2002–2012). Written over ten years, its first two parts were The Whales in Paris and Tarkovsky’s Horses, translated by David McDuff and published by Bloodaxe in 2010 as Tarkovsky’s Horses and other poems. This was followed in 2015 by Salamander Sun and other poems, McDuff’s translation of The Migrant Bird’s Compass and Salamander Sun, the third and fourth parts of the quartet. Pia Tafdrup received the 1999 Nordic Council Literature Prize – Scandinavia’s most prestigious literary award – for Queen’s Gate, 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.
Praise for The Taste of Steel • The Smell of Snow
'Tafdrup converses with the living and the dead while chiseling each passing season, moment, and sensation into words as sharp as steel. Praise must also be given to Bloodaxe Books, who first published Tafdrup’s translations twenty years ago, and their inspiring persistence in bringing new poetry to new readers. If you’re not familiar with the work of Bloodaxe Books, please get googling and burst that bubble of isolation generated by the attention algorithms that have replaced roaming dusty stacks in search of diamonds.' – D.M. O'Connor, RHINO Poetry
'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.' – Marina Dora Martino, Asymptote Journal
'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.' – Emily Kindregan, The School Librarian (Editor's Pick)
Pia Tafdrup reads six poems in English and Danish
Pia Tafdrup reads six poems, in English and Danish, or in Danish with English subtitles: ‘My Mother’s Hand’ (‘Min mors hand’) and ‘Whistling’ (‘Sus’) from Queen’s Gate; ‘Kernel’ (‘Kerne’) and ‘We Are Not Creatures of a Single Day’ (‘Vi er ikke endagsdyr’) from The Whales in Paris, published in Tarkovsky’s Horses and other poems; and ‘At Least One Wound’ (‘Mindst ét sår’) and ‘Goodnight’ (‘Godnat’) from Tarkovsky’s Horses. When Pamela Robertson-Pearce filmed Pia Tafdrup during her visit to Ledbury Poetry Festival in July 2008, only the first two parts of her quartet had been published in Danish, and David McDuff’s translations of those were still in manuscript. In the film she talks about their translation process. This film is from the DVD-anthology In Person: World Poets, filmed & edited by Pamela Robertson-Pearce and Neil Astley (2017).
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