The Biological Composition of a Drop of Seawater is Reminiscent of the Blood in My Veins

Praise for Kim Simonsen: “Luminous and arresting, like the islands themselves.”–Martin Aitken, award-winning translator of Karl Ove Knausgaard’s The Morning Star“The vulnerability of being alive at such a pivotal period in Earth’s history underpins this highly original, compact collection from Kim Simonsen, superbly translated by Randi Ward.”–Michael Favala Goldman, translator of Tove Ditlevsen’s The Trouble with Happiness“A collection for those who loved Inger Christensen’s alphabet, Kim Simonsen’s What good does it do for a person to wake up one morning this side of the new millennium, translated by Randi Ward, has a resounding scientific soulfulness. Straightforward in its assessment of humanity’s likely future in the face of climate change, shadowed by our devastating choices, the book nevertheless finds a kind of wonder in the hard shapes of what can be known. The poems play with scale, moving through deep time and across the breadth of the universe, then pulling the focus to, for instance, a black coffee pot with a silvered spout. This wonderful mechanism brings to mind Tomas Tranströmer, and can create the effect of an almost dizzying metaphysics, or a humor marked by the bathos of humanity itself: ‘Among a hundred billion galaxies, / with a hundred billion stars in each…those glasses/ make you look like Woody Allen.’ English speakers owe a debt of gratitude to Randi Ward, who brings us these poems from the Faroese with the kind of confidence, deftness, and attention only a poet can give to another poet. Her translation is itself a work of art alongside Simonsen’s, and both are worthy of praise.”–Katie Farris, award-winning author of Standing in the Forest of Being AliveSimonsen’s poems often riff on science and the cosmos, with the author frequently juxtaposing the everyday and the cosmic to memorable effect. Sometimes, that turns explorations of one life into something cataclysmic.“–Tobias Carroll, Words Without Borders“Written in free verse, the collection aspires to juxtapose the vast sweep of geology with the relative miniature of humanity, invoking the life cycles of organisms and landscapes whose timescales dwarf our own lives. Yet, the lyric centre of these poems is grief; the speaker has lost their loved one, and here measures their absence against the timelessness of eons.”–Dr. Sayani Sarkar, Asymptote

Kim Simonsen is a nominee for the Nordic Council Literature Prize for his poetry collection What good does it do for a person to wake up one morning this side of the new millennium (Deep Vellum Publishing, 2025). His poetry has recently appeared in Columbia Journal, Best Literary Translations 2025, Washington Square Review, Plume, and Notre Dame Review.

Randi Ward is a poet, translator, lyricist, and photographer from West Virginia. Ward has twice won the American-Scandinavian Foundation’s Nadia Christensen Prize, the only times the prize was awarded to literary work translated from the Faroese. Ward’s translations of Faroese poetry have appeared in Words Without Borders, World Literature Today, Asymptote, and Best Literary Translations 2025. She is also the recipient of the Faroese national award, Landsins, for distinguished service to Faroese culture.

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