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Leaf-Huts and Snow-Houses
Poetry Book Society Recommended Translation
In this generous selection of nearly half of Hauge's poetic work, Robin Fulton displays the range, variety and distinctive qualities of his poetry. Though deeply rooted in the West Norwegian landscape which he evokes so memorably, Hauge's poetry has a kinship in background and temperament with that of Robert Frost, while also sharing the wry humour and cool economy of William Carlos Williams and Brecht, whom he translated. Often epigrammatic, yet lyrical in impulse, his poems have a serenity which makes them unusually rewarding.
Olav H. Hauge (1908-1994) lived nearly all of his life in his native Ulvik in Western Norway, where he worked as a gardener. His poetry is now seen as one of the main achievements of twentieth-century Norwegian literature.
Robin Fulton, Scottish poet, editor and translator, has lived in Norway since 1973. He is a notable translator of Scandinavian poetry whose versions of Swedish poets received the Artur Lundkvist Award in 1977 and Swedish Academy Awards in 1978 and 1998. His collections of poetry include Selected Poems (1980) and several further volumes.
In this generous selection of nearly half of Hauge's poetic work, Robin Fulton displays the range, variety and distinctive qualities of his poetry. Though deeply rooted in the West Norwegian landscape which he evokes so memorably, Hauge's poetry has a kinship in background and temperament with that of Robert Frost, while also sharing the wry humour and cool economy of William Carlos Williams and Brecht, whom he translated. Often epigrammatic, yet lyrical in impulse, his poems have a serenity which makes them unusually rewarding.
Olav H. Hauge (1908-1994) lived nearly all of his life in his native Ulvik in Western Norway, where he worked as a gardener. His poetry is now seen as one of the main achievements of twentieth-century Norwegian literature.
Robin Fulton, Scottish poet, editor and translator, has lived in Norway since 1973. He is a notable translator of Scandinavian poetry whose versions of Swedish poets received the Artur Lundkvist Award in 1977 and Swedish Academy Awards in 1978 and 1998. His collections of poetry include Selected Poems (1980) and several further volumes.
- GenresPoetry
144 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2004
4 people are currently reading
69 people want to read
About the author
Olav H. Hauge
52 books46 followersOlav Håkonson Hauge was a Norwegian poet. He was born in Ulvik and lived his whole life there, working as a gardener in his own orchard.
Aside from writing his own poems, he was internationally oriented, and translated poems by Alfred Tennyson, William Butler Yeats, Robert Browning, Stéphane Mallarmé, Arthur Rimbaud, Stephen Crane, Friedrich Hölderlin, Georg Trakl, Paul Celan, Bertolt Brecht and Robert Bly to Norwegian.
He was also inspired by classical Chinese poetry, e.g. in his poem "T`ao Ch`ien" in the collection Spør vinden (Ask the wind).
Hauge's first poems were published in 1946, all in a traditional form. He later wrote modernist poetry and in particular concrete poetry that inspired other, younger Norwegian poets, such as Jan Erik Vold.
Aside from writing his own poems, he was internationally oriented, and translated poems by Alfred Tennyson, William Butler Yeats, Robert Browning, Stéphane Mallarmé, Arthur Rimbaud, Stephen Crane, Friedrich Hölderlin, Georg Trakl, Paul Celan, Bertolt Brecht and Robert Bly to Norwegian.
He was also inspired by classical Chinese poetry, e.g. in his poem "T`ao Ch`ien" in the collection Spør vinden (Ask the wind).
Hauge's first poems were published in 1946, all in a traditional form. He later wrote modernist poetry and in particular concrete poetry that inspired other, younger Norwegian poets, such as Jan Erik Vold.
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March 7, 2015
It's the Dream: The poetry of Olav H. Hauge
Some poets conquer you at the very first reading itself and you know that they are going to be part of you forever. For me, the great Norwegian poet Olav H Hauge is one of a kind, a rarity in modern literature. I encountered his poetry first in an International anthology of poetry edited by Robert Bly. Since then I have been waiting to get hold of his poetry collections and I must confess that my emotions after reading his poetry are ineffable. As Robert Bly says -" Olav Hauge’s flavour is persistent, like the taste of persimmons that we can never forget.” The tang of even a tiny poem of this poet can trigger our thirst for more.
Norway has produced three great poets in the last century and they are Rolf Jacobsen, Olav H Hauge and Tarjei Vesaas. Their contributions were significant in bringing Scandinavian poetry to the forefront of modern world literature. I had written in February a review on the poetry of the Norwegian poet Rolf Jacobsen and this review is the second in the trilogy . I have two poetry collections of Olav H Hauge -The Dream We Carry Away translated by Robert By and Robert Heiden. The second one is Leaf-Huts and Snow-houses translated by Robin Fulton.. Having compared both, I have come to the conclusion that Fulton captures the beauty and compactness of the poems better than others. However, since both collections are very good and have their own merits and contain some common and some different poems , esp last poems in Bly’s translation, I plan to post a review of The Dream We Carry Away" also so that you can compare the translations and draw your own conclusions.
Oav H. Hauge (1908–1994), a reputed modernist, was one of Norway’s most beloved poets . He lived all his life on what he could produce from three acres of ground. Like Robert Frost, Olav Hauge led a solitary life and wrote poetry leading a solitary existence in Ulvik, a country side in western part of Norway. He lived in the old pre-commercial gift-giving society and visitors say the richness in his house lay in the handmade spoons and bowls, the wooden reading chair, and book cases to which best poetry from many continents had found its way. Olav was an avid reader and he modestly confesses in an interview that half his life was spent in the world of literature. Thus, working as a gardener and fruit farmer in Ulvik where he grew up, he lived a grand life in the books that he collected and the poems that he wrote.
Olav Haugue’s poems are written in his native western Norwegian dialect, conveying by their very word forms both an earthiness and a down-to-earth acceptance of the cycle of life which Standard English cannot transmit in the same way. Yet the translation by Robert Fulton, with its simple, concrete vocabulary, repetition, and straightforward syntax, is as close one can hope to get to the deceptive simplicity of the original. Let me start with a very well-known poem.
Don't give me the whole truth
Don’t give me the whole truth,
don’t give me the sea for my thirst,
don’t give me the sky when I ask for light,
but give me a glint, a dewy wisp, a mote
as the birds bear water-drops from their bathing
and the wind a grain of salt.
The above poem is simply sublime as it is about sensitivity and delicateness. The beauty of it is that the poet does it marvellously with concrete images. And it has an amusing and appealing quality too. The poet announces right away what he wants: “Don’t come to me with the entire truth”. The poet then asks us to bring only a “hint” when he asks for truth, and as a model for such discretion, mentions that bird carry away only a few drops of water as the wind takes from the ocean only a grain of salt. This short, straightforward and tough style is remindful Chinese poetry, of putting as few words to a phenomenon as possible.
The following is another famous poem in Norway, and in its simplicity it points to something central to each of our particular expressions of existence. A comforting as well as uplifting poem in the sense that each has to tread one’s path in a unique way knowing that even the trail of one’s journey will be cleaned irrevocably. “Your Way" might serve as a symbol of the road all young people must walk - over virgin land, where they themselves must find their own way or path.
Your Way
No-one has marked out the road
you are to take
out in the unknown
out in the blue.
This is your road.
Only you
will take it. And there's no
turning back.
And you haven't marked your road
either.
And the wind smoothes out your tracks
on desolate hills.
(Note: This poem though translated by Fulton is from another collection of poems and doesn't appear in this one. I incorporated it as I may not review all collections by the same translator)
Olav’s poetry varies in form, from sonnets to short haiku-like poems, and the quality varies as well, but he has written a great deal of poems of simple beauty and usually with a meditative approach to all things small and universal. He is also a significant voice in the Norwegian geographical landscape too, as he in many ways expresses its grandeur and simplicity, its wildness and purity, and the human feeling of separateness from each other and from nature, while at the same time he transmits a sense of unity with everything and everyone. Here is the title poem:
Leaf-Huts and Snow-Houses
There’s not much to
these verses, only
a few words piled up
at random.
I think
nonetheless
it’s fine
to make them, then
for a little while
I have something like a house.
I remember leaf-huts
we built
when we were small:
to creep in and sit
listening to the rain,
feel alone in the wilderness,
drops on your nose
and your hair –
Or snow-houses at Christmas,
to creep in and
close the hole with a sack,
light a candle and stay there
on cold evenings.
If you grew up in a village and have played with mud-houses (as snow is unheard in my state of Kerala) or snow-houses, the above poem would surely arouse nostalgia. The modesty of the poet in comparing his words to leaf-huts has self-effacing charm. How quietly contented he is in that small world. One senses a rare warmth reading it.
Sorrow and suffering are essential elements in Hauge’s poetry. It is present at all times, weighing down as well as lifting up, hopelessness combined with an anticipated redemption. Negative experiences are greatly represented in Hauge’s poetry, but they are not the final destination for the poetic self. The sorrow is heavy, and sometimes even paralysing, but the author brings a movement to the poems where these depressing emotions appear. For example in the poem titled “Ophelia” , he asks
“Where would we go
If we didn’t have sorrow and death?”
Let us consider another striking poem titled Black Crosses
Black Crosses
Black crosses
in white snow
stooped in rain, awry.
Here came the dead
over the thorny moor
with their crosses over their shoulders
and laid them by
and went to rest
under each icy tussock.
The combination of the pure, simple image and the symbolic treatment of the liberation from suffering are almost gothic in its emphasized and clear darkness, where rain, snow and crosses appear together in the above poem.
The dead come walking, they move – come walking with their sorrow, and as such they are used as a personification. Life and death mirror each other. The dead come walking and lay their suffering down, before they go to rest. Hauge animates the inanimate, what is already dead and buried. In this way, even the unmoving sheds a cold light on our lives. Death in this poem is suddenly our own death, as if death is already here. Hauge creates a moving image of how the dead have walked there, perhaps together, like a long file of doomed on their way to the final rest. The poet is absent, like the absence resting over empty space where no one is looking.
Think of Zen poetry of immediate experience, place it in a northern climate and austere living conditions and you have the poems of Olav Hauge. Despite sorrows, many of his poems carry radiant optimism bright and positive outlook of life and future. Consider the following poem.
New Tablecloth
New yellow cloth on the table.
And clean white pages!
Here the words must come,
such a fine new cloth here
and such fine paper!
The ice settled on the fjord,
the birds came and alighted.
(fjord: a long narrow inlet of the sea between steep cliffs; common in Norway)
I wish to end my blog with my favourite poem that I think casts a very positive outlook on life and with the craving for freedom it expresses, translates well into any human language. I wish someone had painted a picture with these lines embedded in it so that I could hang it up my drawing room (If any GR reader is attempting it, I want to have a copy). It is made up of a chain of repetition of the subordinate clause ‘that’ as its key structural component and point of departure. It is interesting to note that this acts as a dominant rhythmical unit in this poem that works through continually adding new elements to it.
It's the Dream
It's the dream we carry in secret
that something miraculous will happen,
that it must happen –
that time will open
that the heart will open
that doors will open
that the mountains will open
that springs will gush –
that the dream will open,
that one morning we will glide into
some little harbour we didn't know was there.
At sixty-five, Olav married the Norwegian artist Bodil Cappelen, whom he met at one of his rare poetry readings. He died at 86 in 1994 in the old way; no real evidence of disease was present. He simply did not eat for ten days, and so he died. A horse-drawn wagon carried his body back up the mountain after the service. Everyone noticed a small colt that ran happily alongside its mother and the coffin all the way.
Olav’s poetry is miniaturist, pictorial, and ruminative, personal and they become ingrained in our memory forever once read. His spare imagery, Zen like wisdom, unpretentious tone and above all the lyrical rhapsody have made him one of my favourite poets.
Some poets conquer you at the very first reading itself and you know that they are going to be part of you forever. For me, the great Norwegian poet Olav H Hauge is one of a kind, a rarity in modern literature. I encountered his poetry first in an International anthology of poetry edited by Robert Bly. Since then I have been waiting to get hold of his poetry collections and I must confess that my emotions after reading his poetry are ineffable. As Robert Bly says -" Olav Hauge’s flavour is persistent, like the taste of persimmons that we can never forget.” The tang of even a tiny poem of this poet can trigger our thirst for more.
Norway has produced three great poets in the last century and they are Rolf Jacobsen, Olav H Hauge and Tarjei Vesaas. Their contributions were significant in bringing Scandinavian poetry to the forefront of modern world literature. I had written in February a review on the poetry of the Norwegian poet Rolf Jacobsen and this review is the second in the trilogy . I have two poetry collections of Olav H Hauge -The Dream We Carry Away translated by Robert By and Robert Heiden. The second one is Leaf-Huts and Snow-houses translated by Robin Fulton.. Having compared both, I have come to the conclusion that Fulton captures the beauty and compactness of the poems better than others. However, since both collections are very good and have their own merits and contain some common and some different poems , esp last poems in Bly’s translation, I plan to post a review of The Dream We Carry Away" also so that you can compare the translations and draw your own conclusions.
Oav H. Hauge (1908–1994), a reputed modernist, was one of Norway’s most beloved poets . He lived all his life on what he could produce from three acres of ground. Like Robert Frost, Olav Hauge led a solitary life and wrote poetry leading a solitary existence in Ulvik, a country side in western part of Norway. He lived in the old pre-commercial gift-giving society and visitors say the richness in his house lay in the handmade spoons and bowls, the wooden reading chair, and book cases to which best poetry from many continents had found its way. Olav was an avid reader and he modestly confesses in an interview that half his life was spent in the world of literature. Thus, working as a gardener and fruit farmer in Ulvik where he grew up, he lived a grand life in the books that he collected and the poems that he wrote.
Olav Haugue’s poems are written in his native western Norwegian dialect, conveying by their very word forms both an earthiness and a down-to-earth acceptance of the cycle of life which Standard English cannot transmit in the same way. Yet the translation by Robert Fulton, with its simple, concrete vocabulary, repetition, and straightforward syntax, is as close one can hope to get to the deceptive simplicity of the original. Let me start with a very well-known poem.
Don't give me the whole truth
Don’t give me the whole truth,
don’t give me the sea for my thirst,
don’t give me the sky when I ask for light,
but give me a glint, a dewy wisp, a mote
as the birds bear water-drops from their bathing
and the wind a grain of salt.
The above poem is simply sublime as it is about sensitivity and delicateness. The beauty of it is that the poet does it marvellously with concrete images. And it has an amusing and appealing quality too. The poet announces right away what he wants: “Don’t come to me with the entire truth”. The poet then asks us to bring only a “hint” when he asks for truth, and as a model for such discretion, mentions that bird carry away only a few drops of water as the wind takes from the ocean only a grain of salt. This short, straightforward and tough style is remindful Chinese poetry, of putting as few words to a phenomenon as possible.
The following is another famous poem in Norway, and in its simplicity it points to something central to each of our particular expressions of existence. A comforting as well as uplifting poem in the sense that each has to tread one’s path in a unique way knowing that even the trail of one’s journey will be cleaned irrevocably. “Your Way" might serve as a symbol of the road all young people must walk - over virgin land, where they themselves must find their own way or path.
Your Way
No-one has marked out the road
you are to take
out in the unknown
out in the blue.
This is your road.
Only you
will take it. And there's no
turning back.
And you haven't marked your road
either.
And the wind smoothes out your tracks
on desolate hills.
(Note: This poem though translated by Fulton is from another collection of poems and doesn't appear in this one. I incorporated it as I may not review all collections by the same translator)
Olav’s poetry varies in form, from sonnets to short haiku-like poems, and the quality varies as well, but he has written a great deal of poems of simple beauty and usually with a meditative approach to all things small and universal. He is also a significant voice in the Norwegian geographical landscape too, as he in many ways expresses its grandeur and simplicity, its wildness and purity, and the human feeling of separateness from each other and from nature, while at the same time he transmits a sense of unity with everything and everyone. Here is the title poem:
Leaf-Huts and Snow-Houses
There’s not much to
these verses, only
a few words piled up
at random.
I think
nonetheless
it’s fine
to make them, then
for a little while
I have something like a house.
I remember leaf-huts
we built
when we were small:
to creep in and sit
listening to the rain,
feel alone in the wilderness,
drops on your nose
and your hair –
Or snow-houses at Christmas,
to creep in and
close the hole with a sack,
light a candle and stay there
on cold evenings.
If you grew up in a village and have played with mud-houses (as snow is unheard in my state of Kerala) or snow-houses, the above poem would surely arouse nostalgia. The modesty of the poet in comparing his words to leaf-huts has self-effacing charm. How quietly contented he is in that small world. One senses a rare warmth reading it.
Sorrow and suffering are essential elements in Hauge’s poetry. It is present at all times, weighing down as well as lifting up, hopelessness combined with an anticipated redemption. Negative experiences are greatly represented in Hauge’s poetry, but they are not the final destination for the poetic self. The sorrow is heavy, and sometimes even paralysing, but the author brings a movement to the poems where these depressing emotions appear. For example in the poem titled “Ophelia” , he asks
“Where would we go
If we didn’t have sorrow and death?”
Let us consider another striking poem titled Black Crosses
Black Crosses
Black crosses
in white snow
stooped in rain, awry.
Here came the dead
over the thorny moor
with their crosses over their shoulders
and laid them by
and went to rest
under each icy tussock.
The combination of the pure, simple image and the symbolic treatment of the liberation from suffering are almost gothic in its emphasized and clear darkness, where rain, snow and crosses appear together in the above poem.
The dead come walking, they move – come walking with their sorrow, and as such they are used as a personification. Life and death mirror each other. The dead come walking and lay their suffering down, before they go to rest. Hauge animates the inanimate, what is already dead and buried. In this way, even the unmoving sheds a cold light on our lives. Death in this poem is suddenly our own death, as if death is already here. Hauge creates a moving image of how the dead have walked there, perhaps together, like a long file of doomed on their way to the final rest. The poet is absent, like the absence resting over empty space where no one is looking.
Think of Zen poetry of immediate experience, place it in a northern climate and austere living conditions and you have the poems of Olav Hauge. Despite sorrows, many of his poems carry radiant optimism bright and positive outlook of life and future. Consider the following poem.
New Tablecloth
New yellow cloth on the table.
And clean white pages!
Here the words must come,
such a fine new cloth here
and such fine paper!
The ice settled on the fjord,
the birds came and alighted.
(fjord: a long narrow inlet of the sea between steep cliffs; common in Norway)
I wish to end my blog with my favourite poem that I think casts a very positive outlook on life and with the craving for freedom it expresses, translates well into any human language. I wish someone had painted a picture with these lines embedded in it so that I could hang it up my drawing room (If any GR reader is attempting it, I want to have a copy). It is made up of a chain of repetition of the subordinate clause ‘that’ as its key structural component and point of departure. It is interesting to note that this acts as a dominant rhythmical unit in this poem that works through continually adding new elements to it.
It's the Dream
It's the dream we carry in secret
that something miraculous will happen,
that it must happen –
that time will open
that the heart will open
that doors will open
that the mountains will open
that springs will gush –
that the dream will open,
that one morning we will glide into
some little harbour we didn't know was there.
At sixty-five, Olav married the Norwegian artist Bodil Cappelen, whom he met at one of his rare poetry readings. He died at 86 in 1994 in the old way; no real evidence of disease was present. He simply did not eat for ten days, and so he died. A horse-drawn wagon carried his body back up the mountain after the service. Everyone noticed a small colt that ran happily alongside its mother and the coffin all the way.
Olav’s poetry is miniaturist, pictorial, and ruminative, personal and they become ingrained in our memory forever once read. His spare imagery, Zen like wisdom, unpretentious tone and above all the lyrical rhapsody have made him one of my favourite poets.
January 8, 2014
The poet Olav H. Hauge (1908-1994) was a gardener by profession who lived his entire life in Ulvik in Western Norway. This attractively designed book contains a diverse sampling of his deceptively simple poems from those previously published in seven volumes between 1946 and 1980. They have been translated into English by the Scottish poet Robin Fulton in this edition recommended by the Poetry Book Society.
Hauge's poems are mostly sparse, containing layers of meaning beneath the printed word, leaving much open to interpretation. Many of the poems personify the environment that was clearly a big part of Hauge's life, the outer landscape mirroring his inner one. Many of his earlier poems, I felt, were infused with hope, joy, and an appreciation for life, while some of his later poems seemed filled with bleakness, loneliness, sorrow, even anger, though his personal life had taken a turn for the better during those years. Throughout all his poems, I sensed a restlessness from the movement of the landscape in them, from the wind, the water, the snow and rain, or from implements such as arrows and axes.
I would say this is a good starting point for anyone interested in this poet. The book contains a brief biography and a few analyses of the poems. But most of them speak for themselves such as the following poems which were a few of my favorites.
"One Word"
One word
--one stone
in a cold river
One more stone--
I must have more
if I'm to get across
"Briar"
The roses have been sung about.
I want to sing of the thorns
--and the root, that clings
hard to the rock, hard
like a thin girl's hand.
"It's The Dream"
It's the dream we carry in secret
that something miraculous will happen
that it must happen--
that time will open
that the heart will open
that doors will open
that the rockface will open
that springs will gush--
that the dream will open,
that one morning we will glide into
some little harbour we didn't know was there.
Hauge's poems are mostly sparse, containing layers of meaning beneath the printed word, leaving much open to interpretation. Many of the poems personify the environment that was clearly a big part of Hauge's life, the outer landscape mirroring his inner one. Many of his earlier poems, I felt, were infused with hope, joy, and an appreciation for life, while some of his later poems seemed filled with bleakness, loneliness, sorrow, even anger, though his personal life had taken a turn for the better during those years. Throughout all his poems, I sensed a restlessness from the movement of the landscape in them, from the wind, the water, the snow and rain, or from implements such as arrows and axes.
I would say this is a good starting point for anyone interested in this poet. The book contains a brief biography and a few analyses of the poems. But most of them speak for themselves such as the following poems which were a few of my favorites.
"One Word"
One word
--one stone
in a cold river
One more stone--
I must have more
if I'm to get across
"Briar"
The roses have been sung about.
I want to sing of the thorns
--and the root, that clings
hard to the rock, hard
like a thin girl's hand.
"It's The Dream"
It's the dream we carry in secret
that something miraculous will happen
that it must happen--
that time will open
that the heart will open
that doors will open
that the rockface will open
that springs will gush--
that the dream will open,
that one morning we will glide into
some little harbour we didn't know was there.
August 2, 2022
The mountain shows me his scars,
scoured stripes and claw-marks from frost.
Yet there were many days he drank the sun
and was stroked by a gentle wind.
(87)
From 'Drops in the East Wind' (1966)
scoured stripes and claw-marks from frost.
Yet there were many days he drank the sun
and was stroked by a gentle wind.
(87)
From 'Drops in the East Wind' (1966)
March 26, 2024
My favorite poet. Enkel, og sant. Jeg gleder meg til å lese disse igjen på originalspråket når norsken min blir bedre.
November 26, 2017
I ordered two of Olav Hauge’s poetry books and this is my favorite. Dark, beautiful, and sparse....I imagine what winter in Norway is.....
Black Crosses
Black crosses
in white snow
Stooped in rain, awry.
Here came the dead
Over the thorny moor
With crosses on their shoulders
And laid them by
And went to rest
Under each icy tussock.
Black Crosses
Black crosses
in white snow
Stooped in rain, awry.
Here came the dead
Over the thorny moor
With crosses on their shoulders
And laid them by
And went to rest
Under each icy tussock.
May 2, 2013
From the dipping in I've done so far I really like these poems. They give you the same feeling as a refreshing walk in the woods. Which is useful, as there aren't any woods near where I live. I had never heard of Olav H. Hauge before but I'm now looking forward to reading more of his work. I have a definite soft spot for Robert Frost-ish, Thoreau-ish, William Carlos Williams-ish stuff!
February 24, 2022
Perfection
January 1, 2016
What the quiet in the middle of a clearing sounds like, put to words. Oh, shush, it's not as tough or lonely as it sounds – and Hauge is tougher than he looks, quite the guide! These are exquisite poems that ring light with clarity.
October 4, 2014
Dat fire.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews