A collaboration by Lavinia Singer & Vilde Bjerke Torset
Written for the European Poetry Festival 2024
a troll lives in my forest
i’m told i should chop the wood but i am
old lazy scared
a cat
not your death drive
you are as i am
unimpressive protagonisting
you ashen one
my freaky puppet
a troll is the thing that smells you first
as big as you wish to be seen
when you squeeze the cheese
this dripping rock
not everything is a symbol
a front to back rucksack
is best in real terms
when slicing your belly open
if you want to keep eating
V.B.T.
Nothing’s happening.
I’d guess a hundred years.
What a narcissist.
Dream of everlasting youth.
Remember the blood!
Inferior silverware.
I was promised a union of some kind.
Hidden chamber.
Thorny transactions.
Was it a father, or lover? Lover. King?
The curse is a blessing, after all.
Sun and Moon.
Don’t be in such a hurry.
Given life, life is given.
L.S.
and once the dead are dead we can start over
says the fox to the cat
but for now put away my slippers
i’m done with love
the first lesson is
you can die of gluttony
as a plot device
then who comes knocking
but things that are different
i will not go
i will not go
i will not go
don’t you see
i’m a metaphor
for a half thing whole
the alter ego
this side of the orange
i’ll settle for nothing less
than love as a full stop
V.B.T.
When you knocked, I was a pliable rush
in the morning of becoming.
Apple of my eye, I was told to watch
the bearded ones.
Trust your foundations – is there a choice?
It’s like getting blood from a turnip.
Meet me at Home-field and Merry-garden, early bird.
The meat is cooked. Bad meat.
It was your breath, like a winter dance –
another world scatters.
Make hay! Mayday!
When I knew what to admit
it was all too late.
L.S.
for one there’s always three
chances say or chapters
goats!
i knew a goat once
no, three
three chances, three brothers
each more crooked
than the last
hungry beasts they were
hairy armpits, always bleating
i have three brothers
but no goats – never mind
three is not a number
three is try again
more than once
try again is two
try again again
again again
again
is three
V.B.T.
A quiet, secret, lonely room, where no one ever comes
1 2 3, 1 2 3 [as a waltz]
Half is white and half is red, white as snow and red as blood
1 2 3, 1 2 3
Just one taste, pretty – and the mirror tells who’s won
1 2 3, 1 2 3
The birds join the seven, and then the faithful son
1 2 3, 1 2 3
And now the dance begins:
1 2 3, 1 2 3, 1 2 3, 1 2 3 [faster and faster]
L.S.
it’s a short tale
which has nothing to do with grass
and the cutting of it
a hand above water
twofingered
say nothing of the meaning
of two blades intersecting
it’s just a pair of scissors
little you know
and little you want to know
is what i’m told
many are mad and don’t know it
and some have sense and can’t find it
is what i tell myself
instead consider this
what it means
to be found upstream
how admirable
the stubborn idiot
how brave
V.B.T.
The whole sky was blotted with green blooming – it swelled and ascended like a dragon throat – I was compelled to touch and mount – you would have, too – the strength and reign it inspired – I stepped and flew, left behind the – you shouldn’t laugh, no-good cow, look at all I achieved on my own – cunning they called it, but I’d say curious, sharp as a needle – the future gold, I seized, asserted, this isn’t a fantasy! – hold these seeds, yes, two in each hand and one in the mouth – thump, thump, thump, oh, look who is master now.
L.S.
Performance at The National Poetry Library, Southbank Centre, London – 03.07.24
About the artists
Lavinia Singer is the author of the pamphlet Ornaments: A Handbook (If a Leaf Falls/Glyph Press, 2020) and co-editor of Try To Be Better (Prototype, 2019), a creative-critical engagement with the work of W. S. Graham. Her first poetry collection, Artifice, was published by Prototype in 2023.
Vilde Bjerke Torset is a Norwegian poet and artist based in London. Her publications include the poetry books Apollinaire and Other Horses (If a Leaf Falls Press, 2022), WHAT IT MEANS WHEN YOU DREAMS : A to Z (AFV press, 2021), and the artist book PAREIDOLIA - Dotremont’s Daughter (Timglaset Ltd, 2020).
About the European Poetry Festival
The European Poetry Festival is the biggest consistent celebration of continental poetry in the UK. UK. For seven years as a festival, and a decade as an event series, over 1000 European poets have performed new collaborations across the British Isles. The festival celebrates, in the UK and beyond, the grand resurgence in avant-garde and literary poetry that has marked the 21st century across Europe and it aims to not only innovate what a live poetry experience might be, but to inculcate community and engagement between poets across the continent, as well as between new audiences and complex poetries.The seventh festival took place in the summer of 2024.
More information: www.europeanpoetryfestival.com
