Carsten René Nielsen is a Danish poet and the author of twelve books of poetry and one book of flash fiction. Three books have been published in the United States: 'The World Cut Out with Crooked Scissors' (selected prose poems, 2007), 'House Inspections' (prose poems, 2011) and 'Forty-One Objects' (prose poems, 2019), all translated by the American poet David Keplinger. In the United States his poems have been featured in several magazines, among them 'The Paris Review', 'Circumference', 'Agni', 'Two Lines' and 'Copper Nickel'.
»Danish poet Carsten René Nielsen injects new vigor into the form with his Forty-One Objects, a bilingual work that pushes the prose poem into ever stranger orbits. [...] Nielsen and Keplinger have created a stunning book. Readers will leave Forty-One Objects wanting more.«
—John Bradley, Rain Taxi
FORTY-ONE OBJECTS
The prose poems 'Forty-One Objects' was published 2019 by The Bitter Oleander Press in the United States. Longlisted for the 2020 National Translation Award in Poetry from the American Literary Translator's Association.
'Forty-One Objects' is translated by American poet David Keplinger and also contains the Danish versions (first published 2017 as 'Enogfyrre ting').
'Forty-One Objects' is translated by American poet David Keplinger and also contains the Danish versions (first published 2017 as 'Enogfyrre ting').
»Nielsen employs many of the same surreal techniques as Russell Edson, but maintains a more objective tone, and typically leaves the reader with a sense of awe […] House Inspections offers tantalizing mysteries for a world all too often gnawing on its own cynicism.«
—John Bradley, Rain Taxi
»These poems do much more than blur the line between illusion and reality: they evoke that vibrant contradiction of dreaming in which the real and unreal exist in perfect simultaneity …«
—Nicky Beer, The Georgia Review
THE WORLD CUT OUT WITH CROOKED SCISSORS
'The World Cut Out with Crooked Scissors – Selected Prose Poems' by Carsten René Nielsen was published October 2007 by New Issues Poetry and Prose in the United States.
'The World Cut Out with Crooked Scissors' consists of translations of prose poems from Carsten René Nielsen’s books of poetry published 1998-2005: 'Circles' (1998), 'Clairobscur' (2001) and 'Forty-One Animals' (2005) translated by American poet David Keplinger.
'The World Cut Out with Crooked Scissors' consists of translations of prose poems from Carsten René Nielsen’s books of poetry published 1998-2005: 'Circles' (1998), 'Clairobscur' (2001) and 'Forty-One Animals' (2005) translated by American poet David Keplinger.
Nicky Beer reviews 'The World Cut Out with Crooked Scissors' in 'The Georgia Review':
»... scenes and tableaus that are by turns absurd, witty, disturbing, and delightful [...] the unconscious and self-consious merge into one marvelous hybrid.«
Read an excerpt from the review here: