By Inger Elisabeth Hansen (translated by May-Brit Akerhold)

  

 

Lophelia, the society building coral

has had her resilience diminished

her flower is less elastic

it doesn’t absorb calcium-carbonate as it should

the house-yellow Lophelia swathed in aquamarine and azure does no longer absorb

she has keeled over into an alternative stadium

called habitat-fragmentation

she has begun to clone herself to build reefs

 

When the politics is finished, said Engels, we get an administration of things

 

When Lophelia, the society-builder

fragments the habitat, keels over and clones herself,

has she then become a thing

an example of the administration of the end of politics?

 

 

/

Forfatternesklimaaksjon.no has during the last year collaborated with Free Word and Weather Stations. Now we are about to enlarge our partnership. In the weeks to come we will present translations of five Norwegian poems from our homepage at the Free Words website under the banner «On the Road to Paris». The Norwegian Association of Literary Translators and NORLA – Norwegian Literature Abroad – have supported the translations. You can read more about the collaboration between Free Word and NWCC here. This week we proudly present Inger Elisabeth Hansens poem Report from the Acidification by Lophelia in the Coral Reefs outside Fredrikstad, translated from the Norwegian by May-Brit Akerholt.