Transversal revisited

In 2013 I participated in a project that some art students in Trondheim had. They asked for contributions to a zine called Transversal with the theme gender and art. I always intended to post my contribution here, but never got around to it. Now I’m using the two poems in a little animation that I hope to exhibit with the Queer Artists here in Oslo in June. So it seems about time to finally publish the originals here.

Other contributors were BANG Magazine (SE), Ane Lan (NO), Karolina Bang (SE), Christine Jentoft (NO), Constanze Ruhm (DE), Tobias Bernstrup (SE), Kakan Hermansson (SE), Wencke Mühleisen (NO), Luca Dalen Espseth (NO), EVA & ADELE (DE), Kate Bornstein (US), Renate Lorenz & Pauline Boudry (DE), Yvonne P. Doderer (DE), Tiina Rosenberg (FI), Synnøve G. Wetten (NO), Deniz Akin (TR), Nevruz Ebru Aksu (TR), P*fect (SE), Andy Candy (SE), Stine H. B. Svendsen (NO), Ane Gabrielsen (NO), Roxy Farhat, EJ Hill & Sara Cromarty (SE/US), Fender Schrade (DE), og Micheline Bjernudd (SE).

(I’ve neglected my English speaking friends for too long, sorry. I chose to write this post in English also because the poems here are in English (for this occation at least).)

Exciting new year!

I’ve finally got some work done on translating my poems to english! We are a group working in Google docs. It is a great experience and I’ve learned more about the english language these past few days than I ever did in one school year.

The last year, I was ill a lot and had so many concerns about non-literary things. Now I finally feel ready to write and let my texts meet the public again. One of the most rewarding experiences of 2012 was a visit to a highschool/college (don’t know what word best describe the Norwegian «videregående»). The students sat spellbound for two hours, listening to my reading and talk. They also asked a lot of questions, about both writing and transgender issues.

I think I need to make the writing and publishing of a new book of poems my priority this year. Although I love the publisher of Frikar and Framandkar, I probably have to look for another one for the third book in this triology. And then there is this more concept-poetry idea that I’ve been working on.

I’m also exploring other art forms; acrylic painting and performance. Poetry is for me more than a form, more like a feeling, a need to express.

All of these exciting things would never be possible without my good friends. Thank you!

Love poems in translation

For Valentine’s Day I decided to post a few poems, from my last book, that I’ve translated to English. The translation is not finished and might be flawed. If you’d like to use them; feel free as long as you mention that I’m the author.

The decade without a name

Where was I ten years ago?

I was living in a pecieved heterosexual relationship, and had been for the previous 3 years. I was studying creative writing (the first of two years), struggeling to write a novel that nobody liked but me. In between, I wrote short prose. A year ago, I looked at some of what I’d written and thought it was really scary.

Norwegian book publishing business

This text is meant to provide some background information for my Anglo-American readers. It is written from an author’s perspective with focus on poetry. It applies to books written originally in Norwegian.

Help with structuring a collection of poetry – software?

I’ve been searchin the net for a long time without luck. So I’m hoping someone reading this blog have good ideas and recommendations. I am not sure if I need a dedicated software or just an application to Open Office.

What I need help with:

• creating a list of short texts, preferably from the first line (my poems usually have no titles, usually don’t rhyme and is very short)
• linked to the actual text
• enable me to see a preview of the text (readable) without opening every document (if every poem has its own document) or use an extremely large letter size.
• In the actual text I need to be able to format it like I do in Open Office or Word. The line spacing is especially important.
• I would really love it if I also could tag my poems with themes and select every one with the same tag at once and move them.

I can’t find anything like that. It is possible that such a software do exist, maby made for another purpose, and that I just don’t realize that it can do the things I like it to. Please tell me!

An introduction – for my hypothetical english edition

The Norwegian last name Stein means stone and comes from a small farm on the west coast of Norway, where the first settlers found more stone than soil.

Tarald Stein is a Norwegian poet and transman – the first to write about transitioning from female to male in Norwegian.

In this english edition of the  first two of his collections of poetry, the poet has rearranged the poems and created a  new entity.

(Yes, I really want to do that some day and get my work published in a larger language. Any foreign publisher or agent reading this?)

Femininity/masculinity

I really thought I was going to be a feminine man. After all, I enjoy looking good, nice clothes, identify as queer and I’ve always been attracted to feminine men. It turns out I might be quite regular. And it bothers me.

Language

As you may have noticed, english is not my mother’s tongue. And although my mother urged me to have some more english-classes at school, I didn’t like it and quit as soon as I could. So please leave a comment when you see something not right!

And if anyone would help me translate more poems, I’d be very happy. I can do the word for word translation (with the help of a dictonary, I know I have one, somewhere…). What I need is someone with a sense of proper english language, and maybe some poetic strings, to make the poems good literature in english as well. And hopefully my book will some day be ready to be published in english.