The Dream We Carry: Selected and Last Poems

Hauge (1908–1994) worked as a farmer and gardener in the fjord region of his native western Norway—his spare, psalmlike poems seem to be made by someone used to working with his lands, like maker of the houses “of branches we built/ when we were children.” These are also poems infused with a wry, modernist perspective: “Today I saw/ two moons,/ one new/ and one old./ I have a lot of faith in the new moon./ But it’s probably just the old.” Hand in hand with that sensibility comes an allegiance to Japanese haiku—Hauge delivers odes to Basho in addition to Brecht—and readers may be reminded of Kenneth Rexroth. Together, the poems in this beautifully translated selection (the book contains the Norwegian en face) provide us with the autobiography of a poet who felt most at home during winter, in solitude. Hauge deserves a larger American readership, and this book may summon it. (Nov.)