TtD supplement #279 : seven questions for Dag T. Straumsvåg

Dag T. Straumsvåg lives in Trondheim, Norway, and is the author and translator of ten books of poetry, including Nelson (Proper Tales Press, 2017), But in the Stillness (Apt. 9 Press, 2024), and The Mountains of Kong: New & Selected Prose Poems (Assembly Press, 2025), as well as a collaboration with Kingston poet Jason Heroux, A Further Introduction to Bingo (above/ground press, 2024). He runs the small press A + D with his partner, the artist and graphic designer Angella Kassube. His work has appeared in a wide variety of journals in Norway, Canada, and the United States.

His poems “MORNING PHASE,” “ARE YOU STILL AWAKE?,” “SCREEN LIGHT,” “DRIVING AROUND TOWN AT NIGHT TO CHARGE YOUR PHONE,” “LAIDLAW TRIPTYCH: HALF A CENTO,” “BREAKFAST AT CIRCLE K” and “CATHEDRAL” appear in the forty-fifth issue of Touch the Donkey.

Q: Tell me about the poems “MORNING PHASE,” “ARE YOU STILL AWAKE?,” “SCREEN LIGHT,” “DRIVING AROUND TOWN AT NIGHT TO CHARGE YOUR PHONE,” “LAIDLAW TRIPTYCH: HALF A CENTO,” “BREAKFAST AT CIRCLE K” and “CATHEDRAL.”

A: The poems were written individually over several years, but I think they are connected in that they all deal with communication on some level. There are a few love poems which I’m very happy to have written, and a series of prose poems I call “haiku strings.” Since I fell in love with the prose poem thirty years ago, I've thought about the visual side of it, the short paragraph, the box shape and what you can do within it. I started writing traditional haiku, stringing them together, dropping all punctuation, adding extra space between each line instead, and beginning each haiku with a capital letter. There was something there, but it didn't quite work. I tried writing experimental haiku, poems with no connection, but I wasn’t happy with that either. Then I wrote a few straight prose lines, mixing them with an occasional traditional haiku, following the classic 5-7-5 syllable pattern. To my surprise, I liked it. It forces me to read the poems at a different pace, haikus bleeding into each other, words awkwardly beginning with a capital letter appearing in the middle of a prose sentence, or lines are broken up by unnatural space, all within the  prose poem box. And I like the cracks and gaps that appear visually in the poems, randomly, depending on the font and the font size, the margins, adding breaks and pauses I had not intended and which I have no control over, sometimes opening up to new readings of lines years after I wrote them. Many of the poems came about when Angella and I were talking on Skype—the time difference between Minneapolis and Trondheim (seven hours) would cause some unexpected and fun situations. I’m sure the haiku strings are not to everybody’s taste, but I enjoy writing them very much.

Q: How do these poems compare to some of the other work you’ve been doing lately?

A: The haiku string format aside, I think some of these poems contain more autobiographical elements, more narrative fragments, while others may be a little darker. Not consciously, but because you want to address whatever comes your way, you want to find a fitting language, and if possible, a fresh language. Fresh to yourself, at least. Also, I think the inspiration from the classic Chinese and Japanese poets is more visible. Maybe the biggest difference comes from the inspiration I get from Angella. She is a graphic designer and artist, and I find her approach to poems and to reading poems utterly fresh and new. She is the best reader I 've ever met.

I have a new book coming out this spring, The Mountains of Kong: New & Selected Prose Poems (Assembly Press, April 1, 2025), which includes prose poems from the last twenty-five years. As I was finishing it, and as I had just finished a collaboration with Jason Heroux, called A Further Introduction to Bingo (above/ground press, December 2024), it felt like a good time to try my hand at different stuff too. The New & Selected is the result of an almost twenty-five year long collaboration with the brilliant translator Robert Hedin (he is a brilliant poet and editor, too), and the bingo book is the result of a collaboration with the equally brilliant poet/writer Jason Heroux. I have learned a lot from both of them, from their writing and from our email discussions, from our friendships. Some of their stuff has clearly gotten into my poems, and it has made them better. I have been lucky to get to know several great poets, and lucky to call them my friends. The late greats Nelson Ball, Michael Dennis, Louis Jenkins, Clemens Starck, and among the living: Charles Goodrich, Per Helge, Tom Hennen, John Levy, Stuart Ross, Hugh Thomas, Connie Wanek, and Robert and Jason, of course, to mention a few. They all got into my heart and into my writing. But back to your question: I don't think the poems included in Touch the Donkey are very different from other things I have written, but it’s difficult for me to be sure. I guess such things are easier for others to see.

Q: What prompted your collaborative work with Jason Heroux? You say it is difficult to see what might be different, but was there a difference in how you approached your own work due to the collaboration?

A: The collaboration with Jason just sort of happened. We were emailing each other and at some point, Jason said, “Hey, that’s a chapter in a micro novel about bingo!” In the past I had always said no to collaborations—I thought I couldn't do it. A bit like some musicians can’t do improv sessions. The fact that we were writing about the bingo hall I had shared a backyard with for decades, made it easier. If I got stuck I could just look out the window and describe what I saw, and I had at least something. Plus, I loved what Jason was writing so much that I just got caught up in it all, and before we knew it we had both written ten-fifteen texts.

I haven’t consciously changed my way of writing or how I approach a new text, but as a result of the collaboration with Jason, and how fun that was, I believe I approach a new text more relaxed now, with less thought. I trust the process of writing more, trust that the new text will need less guidance and managing from its writer.

Q: How difficult do you find the process of working within, or even between, two languages? Does your writing shift depending on the language you are using? Are there places your writing goes in one that it is unable to go in the other?

A: It's challenging in the sense that I think and dream and feel in Norwegian, and my Norwegian vocabulary is much better than my English. On the other hand, I learned English from listening to folk and rock music, from TV and movies, from reading poetry. So the English is deeply connected with the singers and poets and movies that took me to my “dream places” which I would escape to when I was a kid. Still do, I suppose. So it’s more an advantage, really, writing in two languages. On a good day I can take the best from both.

My Nynorsk writing is different from my English writing. No doubt. Most of the prose poems in The Mountains of Kong I wrote in Nynorsk, and most of the poems in Nelson, But in the Stillness and in A further Introduction to Bingo (with Jason Heroux), I wrote in English. The haiku strings in the new issue of Touch the Donkey were easier to write in English, because English has more one and two syllable words than the Norwegian languages, making the 5-7-5 syllable pattern easier to achieve. But I’ve had great help with my English versions from Angella, Robert Hedin, Stuart Ross, Jason Heroux, and the late great Louis Jenkins.

I think my Nynorsk is more multi-layered and nuanced than my English, but thanks to the great help from the ones mentioned above, the difference is less visible than it would have been if it was just me all the time. Actually, my English without their help, would be rubbish. Mostly, it's great fun and a great privilege to be able to work in two languages. I’ve learned a lot from working on translating my prose poems with Robert Hedin. He is brilliant with nuance, rhythm, and sound—just read his stellar translations of Olav H. Hauge and Harry Martinson. And translating Michael Dennis (Spøkjelse i japanske drosjar/Ghosts in Japanese Taxis) and Tom Hennen (Finn eit stille regn/Find a Quiet Rain) from English and publishing them in bilingual editions on A + D, the micro press Angella and I run, has been a joy and very helpful to get a deeper understanding of the English language.

If I write about something that is emotionally difficult, the Nynorsk provides the nuances and accuracy and history I need to go deep, the English, on the other hand, provides the distance that makes me able to write about such things in the first place. So my poems are often a huge mess during the writing process—a mix of Nynorsk and English lines scattered all over the page (and the house). Then, at some point, it either clears up and becomes a poem in one of the languages, or I give up and go to a nearby park at midnight and bury every sentence under a big oak tree there.

Q: With ten books and chapbooks under your belt, how do you feel your work has developed? Where do you see your work headed?

A: I think my work has developed fairly well in the sense that I haven’t willed it in any particular direction. I try not to interfere with the texts and surprisingly often they find their own way and form. As I grow older I get slower and less ambitious, though. In the past I wanted to sail around the world, climb the highest mountains. Now I am happy if I have a good night‘s sleep or make a good cup of coffee in the morning. But I hope to write a science based prose poem about coffee mugs one day.

I’ve learned to trust what I write about more than I used to do, that everything has its own value and mystery. It doesn't have to be about the big questions, the big dramas. It used to be the hardest thing, trusting that what I had was enough. That I didn’t have to paint the old chair in bright colors, or to make the new chair look old. They have their own stories and mysteries. If I pay close attention, it's all there: tragedy, comedy, strangeness, wildness, beauty. And more. If I have one ambition left, it must be that I want to show how beautifully strange things are in themselves instead of making anything up. To get better at observing and describing.

The second question is difficult to answer. Or rather, it’s a question I don’t want to know the answer to! It would be nice if my work is headed somewhere that will surprise me. That's the most difficult thing in a writer's life. To surprise yourself.

Q: I’ve long felt that writing can best be considered a collaboration between the writer and the work itself, two sides finding that perfect balance towards something new. How do you see the process?

A: That's interesting! I don’t know if this answers your question, but sometimes, when I get into a conversation with the work, or characters in the work, I’m having the best time. There may be a back-and-forth conversation going on for hours, days or weeks—in the case of “Cathedral” it went on for years—I started so many different versions of it, and the text said, “Nope. That’s not right.” And I put the poem away. For months and years. But it would always return to me. Then I tried making it into one of those haiku strings, and it finally felt right.

Sometimes I freeze an image or a scene and just walk around it, looking for the best angle. Most of the time the collaboration/conversation with the text is unconscious, though, which I think is vital. Not overthink or plan too much. I love it when the text “comes alive” during the writing, becomes an active part of the writing of itself. Of course, the next morning I may realize that the text is crap, but the process was still great fun.

Q: Finally, who do you read to reenergize your own work? What particular works can’t you help but return to?

A: I always go back to the poems of Stephen Crane, Olav H. Hauge, Jean Follain, Tomas Tranströmer, Bashō, Issa, Santōka, Tom Hennen, Russell Edson, Daniil Kharms, Harry Martinson, Louis Jenkins. I love Quarrels by Eve Joseph, Shadow of a Cloud but No Cloud by Killarney Clary. I always go back to Joseph Cornell’s shadow boxes, the films by Aki Kaurismäki and Roy Andersson. And my poet friends mentioned earlier in the interview—we got to know each other and became friends much because of the brilliance of their work. It is a huge privilege to become friends with your favorite poets. I will always return to their work, too.