2022
Not only grief after a loved one has passed away, but also how and to what extent one should relate to grief, is the theme of this book, which contains prose poems based on the experiences of a young protagonist when the grandparents passes away. The debutant mixes beautifully mental landscapes with the landscapes of nature: “This memory will lose all its leaves and turn to soil.”
Impressive. Skoglund stands out strongly with a collection of prose poems that start where life ends. With each new reading, the admiration for the author's distinctive talent increases, where the obvious and the irrational meet in concrete descriptions and paradoxical formulations.
Sensitive and intelligent portrait of a mourning work. By and large, Waking up as Part of Nature is a exceptional successful debut work.
Here is an unusual number of beautiful and precise sentences. In the best poems, numbness is given a sensuous expression. These are talented poems kept in a thoughtful style.
"Aim for the moon / even if you do not hit it / you always land / among the stars."
This is the poem that the narrator's little sister puts in their grandmother's coffin, and it's also how it feels to read Norwegian Skoglund's prose poems.
This is not a debut that forces its way through. The more reason to pay attention to it.
Skoglund writes picky and disciplined, sober and controlled, without resorting to big feelings.
Skoglund writes reflectively, honestly and closely about death and disappearance.
There is something very moving about this book. At the same time, it is about maturing in the knowledge that everything is perishable, straightening your back and moving on.
Skoglund has a suitable motto for his book of short prose texts: 'I'm writing this straight down towards the soil.' That the lyrics are 'down to earth' means two things here: it's about death, and about nature.
In this evocative poetry, questions are asked about how to displace without forgetting.
Skoglund writes precise, sensuous and unsentimental poems about the death of his grandparents.
Ulv Ulv Tommy Skoglund
