An eclectic and frequently glorious tour of Western Norway in the late summer of 2017 saw me fortunate to travel with friends and poets Endre Ruset, who was responsible for the venture, and Harry Man. After flying to Bergen and reading in the cities Bibliotek, thanks to the brilliant poet Erland Nødtvedt, I read at the Bjørnson festival in Molde, celebrating the work of Arne Ruset. A chance to further my relationship with contemporary Norwegian poetry, which began in 2010, and more than that, share some extraordinary fjords, mountains, seas and times with great folk.

Bergen is famed for its rainfall, but we were fortunate, flying in from London, to have a day to acclimatise in beautiful sunshine, and I was able to roam all over the city, across the university campus, the old docks and up into the hills around the harbour. The first time I had spent time in Bergen since 2002, when I lived in Oslo for many months for a very different reason than poetry. Endre travelled to meet Harry and I from that city, overnight, after a translation deadline encroached on his always intense schedule. That made all three of us pretty much sleepless, which was a theme for the trip, and added the often creative, underwater quality to the journey. We then linked up with local poet Kristian Heggernes, a really fine poet, and prepared our reading, which would see us present new collaborations in revolving pairs, in a sort of miniaturised Enemies project. The Bergen library is so beautiful, and we were so well treated, spirited out of the rain after a guided tour of the city, that the experience felt more personal, more intimate than a normal reading....

Read the full travelogue here http://www.stevenjfowler.com/norway