They have grabbed me opened up
cut loose reshaped my nature
spared a cypher from being extinguished
begun a protracted illness
The room tightened
brought my life sphere
one step closer to my body
underneath was a blind area
As if I voluntarily donated
my silent tissue to these violent
cells entrusted me as a mother ship
host animal for endgames and destruction
The I function non-sovereign in this drama
why talk about function as if I
with language could control these whispering
crystal spores mythological stalactites
without intent or anthropomorphic characteristics
Melancholic pursuit of pleasure
eats up the time
I should spellbind dusk
which always starts over
If only the magical organs
were here capable of
placing me in the orbit that
refines all organic material
Johannes Göransson is the author of nine books of poetry and criticism, most recently Summer (2022), and the translator of several books of poetry, including works by Aase Berg, Ann Jäderlund, Kim Yideum, and, most recently, Eva Kristina Olsson’s The Angelgreen Sacrament (Black Square Editions, 2021). His poems, translations and critical writings have appeared in a wide array of journals in the US and abroad, including Fence, Lana Turner, Spoon River Review, Modern Poetry in Translation (UK), Kritiker (Denmark) and Lyrikvännen (Sweden). He is a professor in the English Department at the University of Notre Dame and one of the editors of Action Books.
Helena Boberg (b. 1974) lives and works in Stockholm, Sweden. Her books include Repuls (Repulsion, 2011), Sinnesvåld (Sense Violence, 2013) and Konsten at med hvissa metodiska rörelser hemkalla en hädangången til lifvet (The art of recalling a deceased person to lif with certayne methodical movements, 2020) and Röd Melankoli (Red Melancholia, 2022). A sometime member of the Surrealist Group of Stockholm, Boberg draws on psychoanalytic, surreal, and feminist discourses in her poetry. She is also a translator of poetry and participates in the feminist-literary project Shaerat, which over the past ten years have involved writers from Sweden, Palestine, Iran, Iraq, Bahrain and Algeria among others, in workshops to facilitate translating and networking among female poets. Sense Violence, published by Black Ocean, U.S.A., in 2020, was a finalist for The 2021 PEN America Literary Awards. Boberg has been translated and published internationally in several printed and online literary journals; in Brazil, Denmark, Finland, Irak, Iran, Rumania, Saudi-Arabia, Ukraine, U.S.A.
