Lia Purpura, Parasol Mushroom (detail), featured in AGNI 102
“The way the walls . . .”
Translated from the Danish by Thom Satterlee
The way the walls in this room
hold the sun’s
warmth from yesterday until
today when the sky is
covered with clouds
I imagine
words have the
same ability to
save that
first radiance within
their blue
shadows
Annemette Kure Andersen, born in Ribe, Denmark, in 1962, studied at the University of Aarhus, receiving her MA in Italian literature in 1990. Her seventh collection of poetry, Vandskel (Borgen), appeared in spring 2005.
Thom Satterlee is associate professor of English at Taylor University in Upland, Indiana. Some of his recent translations of Annemette Kure Andersen’s poetry have appeared in Sulphur River Review, Osiris, Black Warrior Review, The Literary Review, and Verse. (9/2007)
Annemette Kure Andersen
Thom Satterlee
Thom Satterlee translated, from the Danish, The Hangman’s Lament: Poems of Henrik Nordbrandt (Green Integer, 2003) and two collections of the poet Per Aage Brandt: These Hands (HOST, 2011) and If I Were a Suicide Bomber & Other Verses (Open Letter, 2017). His individual translations have appeared in Seneca Review, Prairie Schooner, AGNI, The Literary Review, and elsewhere. (updated 10/2018)