Olav H. Hauge

Olav Håkonson Hauge (18 August 1908 – 23 May 1994) was a Norwegian poet. He was born in Ulvik and lived his whole life there, working as a gardener in his own orchard.

Aside from writing his own poems, he was internationally oriented, and translated poems by Alfred Tennyson, William Butler Yeats, Robert Browning, Stéphane Mallarmé, Arthur Rimbaud, Stephen Crane, Friedrich Hölderlin, Georg Trakl, Paul Celan, Bertolt Brecht and Robert Bly to Norwegian.

He was also inspired by classical Chinese poetry, e.g. in his poem "T`ao Ch`ien" in the collection Spør vinden (Ask the wind).

Hauge's first poems were published in 1946, all in a traditional form. He later wrote modernist poetry and in particular concrete poetry that inspired other, younger Norwegian poets, such as Jan Erik Vold. A well-known example, in the Norwegian original:

Katten

sit i tunet

når du kjem.

Snakk litt med katten.

Det er han som er varast i garden.

In English translation:

The cat is sitting

out front

when you come.

Talk a bit with the cat.

He is the most sensitive one here.

Hauge has been translated to English by the Scottish poet Robin Fulton in Olav Hauge: Selected Poems, from 1990, and by the American poet Robert Bly in Trusting Your Life to Water and Eternity: Twenty Poems of Olav H. Hauge, from 1987. The American author Robert Hedin translated Hauge in 2001 in the collection The Bullfinch Rising from the Cherry Tree: Poems of Olav H. Hauge and in Leaf-huts and Snow-houses in 2004. Robert Bly and Robert Hedin together translated Hauge in 2008 in The Dream We Carry: Selected and Last Poems of Olav H. Hauge (Copper Canyon Press). Words from Glor i oska were used as lyrics for the Solefald song "Song til stormen" off of their 2010 album, Norrøn Livskunst.

List of works

• Glør i oska (Noregs boklag, 1946)
• Under bergfallet (Noregs boklag, 1951), Beneath the Crag
• Seint rodnar skog i djuvet (Noregs boklag, 1956), Slowly the Trees Turn Red in the Gorge
• På ørnetuva (Noregs boklag, 1961), On the Eagle's Tussock
• Dikt i utval: Dogg og dagar editor Ragnvald Skrede. (Noregs boklag, 1965)
• Dropar i austavind (Noregs boklag, 1966), Drops in the East Wind
• Spør vinden (Noregs boklag, 1971), Ask the Wind
• Dikt i samling (Noregs boklag, 1972)
• Syn oss åkeren din in selection by Jan Erik Vold. Bokklubben, 1975. (Collected from Dikt i samling)
• Janglestrå (Samlaget, 1980), Gleanings
• Regnbogane (1983) (Children's book, illustrations by Wenche Øyen)
• ABC, 1986 (Children's book)
• Mange års røynsle med pil og boge (recording). (Samlaget, 1988)
• Brev 1970-1975 (Cappelen, 1996)
• Det er den draumen (Samlaget, 1998), It's the Dream
• Dagbok 1924-1994 (Samlaget, 2000)
• Skogen stend, men han skiftar sine tre. Aforismar i utval (Samlaget, 2001)
• The Dream We Carry: Selected and Last Poems of Olav H. Hauge, (Copper Canyon Press, 2008) (translated by Robert Bly and Robert Hedin)

Translations

• Utanlandske dikt, 1967
• Stephen Crane: Svarte ryttarar, 1974
• Bertolt Brecht: Til ettertidi, 1978
• Hand grip hand i svevne, 1978
• Dikt i umsetjing, 1982
• Frå Rimbaud til Celan, 1991

Awards

• Kritikerprisen 1961, for På ørnetuva
• Sokneprest Alfred Andersson-Ryssts fond 1968
• Dobloug Prize 1969
• Sunnmørsprisen 1971, for Spør vinden
• Melsom-prisen 1973
• Aschehougprisen 1978
• Nynorsk barnelitteraturpris 1983 for Regnbogane (jointly with Wenche Øyen)

External links

• NRK: Sound recordings with Olav H. Hauge
• Olav H. Hauge at NRK Forfatter
• Olav H. Hauge at Dagbladet Forfatter
• Olav H. Hauge at Aftenposten Alex
• Olav H. Hauge at the Olav H. Hauge & Geirr Tveitt centennial celebration

Persondata
Name	Hauge, Olav
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	18 August 1908
Place of birth
Date of death	23 May 1994
Place of death