Excerpt from: Orangedampened Axe, December 2002

The Beatrice Prize for 2002 was awarded to Nicolaj Stochholm, whose formally styled but fierce poetry is developing at headlong speed

By : Pia Tafdrup

The first time I heard Nicolaj Stochholm read was in 1992 during the writers’ congress at Rungstedlund to which Torben Brostrøm, Uffe Harder, Klaus Høeck and I had invited him on the basis of just one book, his first collection, Biografi (Biography), which had already beaten its way into my heart. He read on Sunday 4th October, and I thought: ‘Well, so the Academy is attending divine service,’ for Nicolaj stood there with hair combed nicely back from his brow and hands folded upon his book, not so different from a Catholic priest as he read out his poems with shy contemplation. Yet from the start they had great strength, although this mode of delivery soon gave way to a consciously extrovert presentation addressed to his audience.

I have often heard Nicolaj read. At the Palace Bar not long ago, and most recently on the telephone, when I called Ireland to tell him he was to receive the Beatrice Prize for this year. Here I was treated to – with the Irish gale as a suitable accompaniment – a newly written love poem, one of the impetuous sort that Nicolaj Stochholm’s rapidly accelerating fan group can look forward to. His presentation varies, strongly dependent on weather, time, place, temperament, the sorrow of love, and so on, but every time as intense as the handshake he can give, so you stand there feeling your knuckles being totally pulverised beneath the skin.

The intensity is violent. But it is talented as well. He has a talent for finding a form that sustains. To date he has produced Biography, published in 1991, Sammenfald (Merging) the following year, and six years later, Rekonstruktion (Reconstruction) – published in one volume with the title Sange fra et ophør (Songs from a cessation). Notice that ‘Songs’, for the poet regards the song as vital, and rhythm holds sway throughout the trilogy. The latest book is called Femogtyve digte og en drøm (Twenty-five poems and a dream) The poet has not married just one publishing house. Twenty-five poems and a dream bears the imprint of Gyldendal, the former collections were from Lindhardt & Ringhof and the two first ones from Borgen, in whose magazine, Hvedekorn (Grains of Wheat) he appeared at the age of 17. But eight more years were to pass before the first book was published.

…

Nicolaj Stochholm’s poetry lays great weight on expressive force. His trust in form is almost paramount when he declares, for instance: ‘I write from the belief that the form will save me.’ He adopts a playful, dreaming, systematic and serious approach to language and allows himself the freedom of weighing up these approaches to find which will suit him best. His working method is consistent and uncompromising. In the first books with a lofty style, later with a simpler and more direct tone, but in both cases a door is left open offering space for life and death and poetic transcendence.

Nicolaj Stochholm writes with remarkable energy and violence, but these are not poems, which merely bolt with the bit in their teeth, the formal determination is equally strong. It is not least this aspect that makes the poems both aesthetically interesting and unputdownable. Nicolaj Stochholm’s writing is expanding rapidly. We are glad to accompany him on his poetic Odyssey, and it is a unanimous decision for The Danish Academy to award him the Beatrice Prize.

This is an excerpt from the speech given at the annual festival of The Danish Academy, December 2002, by Pia Tafdrup (see profile of Pia Tafdrup).

Translated by Anne Born