D is soft in Denmark. Sondergaard is Sonnegoe, Kierkegaard
is Kierkegoe, Knausgaard is Kenausgoe. A happy, strange week in Copenhagen to
finish off the Fjender project for now. Really at the core of this offshoot of
the Enemies project was the relationship between myself and Morten Sondergaard,
and his hospitality, generosity and energy of ideas has made my time in
Copenhagen memorable. To have the time to really communicate with someone, to
refine ones ideas in the face of such openness and intelligence is a wonderful
thing, the very physical actualisation of an approach I’ve tried to take to my
writing, my events and all such things, where process is emphasised over
product, with the hope that the positive former will take care of the latter.
vikings on exhibition at Ark books, Copenhagen
My last day in Denmark was spent visiting the Asger Jorn
exhibition at the national art museum, with Peter Jaeger and Morten, two wiser,
kinder poets you couldn’t hope to meet. Having just taught Jorn as part of my
Poetry School class a few weeks back, as he was a fundamental part of the CoBrA
group, and been entranced by his work the further my investigations went, this
was a perfect combination of things. Once in awhile an exhibition does what it
is supposed to do to you. Once I had spoken to Morten and Peter at great length
I found an arts supply shop, bought indian ink and paper and a scratch pen and
took to finally completing a project of asemic writing I had begun years
before. This is the purpose of all the stupid emailing bullshit, all the admin,
the fraught running between working fulltime, training, teaching, organising –
to open up days, like a aperture, where I am overwhelmed with the feeling of
being fortunate to be able to experience life as a choice, to have the complete
freedom to have experiences beyond my own small world, in new places, with new
people, who are wiser and kinder and more intelligent than I, and to be able to
create reflections of that experience without limitation.
Overall it was a week split in two, dark days and light
days. The day at the zoo, commiserating with the surviving giraffes and
spending hours by the bears, finding Kierkegaard’s grave by accident, visiting
Ark books, who were hosting our reading and exhibiting my books and runic art,
and then reading in the strange literature house with Morten, Peter and Martin
Glaz Serup was wonderful. I am sure it will be the beginning of much, the
Fjender project, rather than an end, and over the three events and month that
it has lasted I have proven to myself that this mode of organisation, creating
partnerships in writing across nations and languages has the potential for
brilliance I thought it did.