Third-Millennium Heart, by Ursula Andkjaer Olsen
Translated by Katrine Ogaard Jensen
To put it simply and get right to it, Third-Millennium Heart by Ursula Andkjaer Olsen is one of the most human things I have ever read. I know that sounds cliche, but there really is no more succinct way to put it. This is a collection of poetry that embodies both the intoxicating power and horrifying vulnerability of the human experience. This is a poetic perspective that is simultaneously aware of the cosmically vast, the quantumly tiny, and the dance those two facets have been locked in since the beginning of time.
“I am. God is the lifting of differences between part and whole.
The structure of breastfeeding is divine, we are God, every dayGLORIA.”
One of the central and most powerful themes running through this beating Third-Millennium Heart is a no-holds barred exploration of the psyche of motherhood. The collection seems to have a single speaker throughout its run, and her thoughts are never far from a child she has had, a child she is yet to have, and/or a child she can no longer have. These sections are a master-class on the power of language in poetic form, as they beautifully convey the kind of visceral intensity that can be found in unconditional love and in pre- and post-partum depression. They deal with questions of morality in bringing a child into a dangerous and brutal world. They deal with wanting to help a child avoid making the mistakes of its parent, as well as situations in which pregnancy itself is a mistake. The poems immerse themselves in the metaphorical resonance that motherhood shares with godhood, especially with regards to the power to create and deny life, but also in the form of staring at all creator gods and asking how they resolved the turmoil and responsibility of their roles.
“Forehead pointing west, a woman sits
and between her legs, another woman sits, forehead
pointing west
and between the other woman’s legs, a third woman sits, forehead
pointing west
and between the third woman’s legs
the new sun rises.”
In this almost accidental exploration of metaphysics, the speaker also realizes that, from her perspective, the universe has taken on an aspect that is referred to more than once as fractal. Fractals are geometric concepts that describe how structural patterns recur throughout certain systems. The speaker witnesses as the same struggles and ballets play out on the macroscopic and microscopic scales, and she is confronted with the scope and intricacy of a universe that operates with such symmetry and forward momentum. She wonders about whether the crises that eat at her will amount to any real change, while simultaneously drawing some comfort from seeing herself in a succession of creation and death that inherently means her potential child will, by its very existence, alter the entire universe. Settings and symbols see repetition again and again throughout the collection, even during otherwise unconnected thought processes, in the vein of mantras and meditations meant to stabilize a runaway mind. As readers, we see in real time the forced evolution of a soul that refuses to return to the cave.
“First, I drown in the radiance of the world. Then I want to be the opposite of
radiance: a dullness, hiding me and drawing everything to me, turning
all into one.
First, I open my limits to everything. Then, once I penetrate myself,
everyone, woman, man, babel and ivory,
will turn into me.”
With this kind of paradigm shift, the speaker becomes thoroughly aware of her own body and, if the soul can be said to be separate, the soul’s relationship with it. In the most immediate terms, this resolves itself in internal poetic debates about sex. We see the speaker’s mind as it revels in and decries the fires of passion. On the one hand, those fires can provide a warmth that, even if only for a moment, banish the cold of an incomprehensible universe. Moreover, they can, however intentionally or unintentionally, spark to life the flames that will become the soul of a child. On the other hand, the fire is more than capable of blinding and bringing pain, of burning hope and ambition to ash and scarring those that it touches. This consistent duality is always present as the speaker confronts sexual contact of any kind. One of the earlier poems even dares to ask about a child conceived out of rape. We are not given the protective shield of academic interest here; hands, legs, vaginas, and hearts are presented to us consistently as being “RED”, and whose blood is staining us is rarely defined with clarity.
“I am not who I am.”
It has to be noted that all of this incredibly heavy subject matter can only be addressed this comprehensively because the structure and the language of the poems are handled with such deftness. Too often experimental poetry tries to break rules for the sake of breaking rules, which in and of itself is not a bad thing but which also loses out on a great deal of resonant potential. Here, the “rules” are broken with divine purpose and it feels intensely appropriate. Poems are spread out over multiple pages as the thoughts of the speaker work through their problems in stops and starts, often when a new piece of the puzzle is found. The effect avoids the halting stutter than many similar works can’t help but show. Instead, the effect is like reading fragmentary poems that feel in and of themselves complete, only for the next page to reveal a devastating contradiction or show a line that is impossible in both its necessity and surprise. When Olsen takes the time to put only a single line on a single page, that line cuts to the core in a way that the longest novels often can’t.
“My name is Nothing, so that when you call 1000 names I will come
no matter what, I will come.
Everything will be thick and RED, everything will flow.”
I don’t intend to keep you here all day, but there really is no end of talking points when it comes to Third-Millennium Heart. I haven’t even yet touched on the slap in the face delivered by the collection to the god Capitalism, or on the value of this work to the feminist movement in general, or the significance of having and lacking a name and what identity means in a universe of cycles, or about how the quality of Katrine Ogaard Jensen’s translation is amazing and absolutely vital in its retelling of Olsen’s stories. There is so much here to revel in and be horrified by and fall in love with. And that is what I meant at the start about this being the among the most human pieces of art I have ever encountered. It celebrates and vilifies in a way that feels wholly appropriate when examining humanity, its past, and its potential. It addresses big questions in the interest of their practical effects, and it spares nothing in sharing those questions and answers with us.
Third-Millennium Heart is available now through Action Books and Broken Dimanche Press.