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[Avla]






Avla
- Am I a horse without tail
I don’t eat tails   Out of the earth
horses grow   I shout – the horse!
that’s how I catch a horse with the word
out of the earth   But something always goes
in another flight and the earth splits
open anew and the lily’s stalk
lays open in autumn   I am
all that I am not   My
name is horses’ tails
the horse’s juice
glows in my mouth
between his juice and the snake’s
her face brightens
the face’s shadow
hangs its shadow faces





Eva Kristina Olsson (b 1958) is the author of many books of poetry, prose and plays going back to The Crime (1988). She has staged numerous performances and directed several experimental films, works that often draw on and feed into her poetry. In 2017 she published the critically acclaimed The Angelgreen Sacrament, which was published by Black Square Editions in translation in 2021. These poems are from the booklength Horse Catcher, published in 2009, which draws its language and imagery from one of her films. The main characters are Sten, Avla and a lot of horses.

Johannes Göransson (b 1973) is the author of several books of poetry and criticism, most recently Transgressive Circulation and Summer. His most recent translations are The New Quarantine, a collaborative translation with Sara Tuss Efrik of his first book (A New Quarantine Will Take Your Place), The Angelgreen Sacrament by Eva Kristina Olsson, and Lonespeech by Ann Jäderlund. Aase's Death by Aase Berg is forthcoming. He teaches in the MFA program at the University of Notre Dame and is one of the editors of Action Books.