Condition of Secrecy

Reviews / Votes

"Christensen's scientific and sensuous language resonates with a cosmic vibrancy." -- Columbia Journal "One of Scandinavia's finest experimental poets, Christensen's probing, questioning, hopeful voice was an important one and is missed, but we can still hear it in this provocative book. A poet who was definitely not living in an ivory tower." -- Kirkus "What sets Christensen above other poets, moralists, mystics, and scientists is that she rarely instructs by telling how to see, but instead gets readers to experience an alternate way of seeing through the reading of her verse. From one essay to the next, her luminous prose (conveyed in graceful, intimate English by her longtime translator Susanna Nied) confirms what was already evident in the poems: that Christensen was one of the eminent visionaries of the 20th century." -- Los Angeles Review of Books "Condition of Secrecy exudes-and induces-the same fugue-like state induced by the best poems, especially long poems, and particularly Christensen's own." -- Michigan Quarterly Review "Christensen is at her most intriguing when posing questions, as when she wonders, 'Does art originate from the same necessity that gives rise to beehives, the songs of larks, and the dances of cranes?' and asking whether it is possible to write poetry that is compelling if read 'out loud to a cockroach?' These borderline silly yet profoundly imaginative questions make for a thought-provoking reading experience." -- Publishers Weekly "Like all Christensen's writing, The Condition of Secrecy aims to be a history of no less than everything: the origins of the stars and our souls, the beauty of fractals and of third-century Chinese poetry. It is a book about eating strawberries, witch-burning and the challenge that the soft, scumbled sides of clouds pose to geometry. It's about standing in the garden and watching yellow slugs 'moving like slow flames' in sunlight. It's a hectic kind of erudition that could easily seem showy, but in these essays we experience it as a kind of abundance, an outpouring of love for the world. Nied's clean, musical translation helps. There is nothing knotty, nothing strained. The arguments radiate outward with the measured rhythm of ripples in water." -- Parul Seghal - The New York Times "Inger Christensen manages to make wit, passion and questioning, and astonishing design serve each other's ends as one, and she does it in a way that is utterly her own." -- W. S. Merwin