Eva Runefelt

Where we have been

is where we are

A vein

through and through

over and over again

Brush and bristles

run through us

where we have been and always are

A few lines at the end of Eva Runefelt's poetry collection Minnesburen can be said to be the epitome of the book. It's about memories, about always being present in the moment and at the same time have your sojourn in the past. We carry all our life with and within us - there is childhood with parents and siblings, and an almost mystical and very rational attitude to what is happening, and there is youth and adult life that gather more experience, visions, memories of living and dead. Our lives are becoming richer, increasingly multi-faceted, they are becoming larger but also more and more incredible: we exist, with this within.

Eva Runefelt, born1953, has a rich authorship behind her. She made her début in 1975 and since then - including this latest book - has published twelve books. Although her début was as a prose writer with the novel I Svackan she has primarily been associated with lyric poetry, in collections of poetry such as En kommande tid av livet (1975), Augusti (1981), Mjuka mörkret (1997), I ett förskingrat nu (2007). They are all works that are extremely sensitive when it comes to the movement of the soul in harmony with its surroundings - nature, urban environment, other people - and which sensually and seemingly simply, talk about the hardest thing in life, love, death, memory.

Minnesburen partly oversteps genre. It is divided into three sections, “Barndomligt”, “Gåendeskrivandet” and “Ögonblickligt”. The first two contain prose poems or short prose pieces, while the third section is more traditionally lyrical in its form. But naturally we recognise her language throughout the book. Here is the quiet tone that nevertheless holds a strong pathos, the seemingly mundane that can be broken by an imagery that is surprising and fresh, which gives the reader a new and enhanced vision and therefore turns reading into an experience in which intensity borders on both music and visual art.

Minnesburen is a very beautiful and poignant book, a look back at childhood through life experiences. Eva Runefelt pursues this in her writing which grips the great totalities, as she takes a big step forward as a poet. She shows that writing is an art movement - both in terms of the book's inner life, as it applies to the expression, interpretation.

Arne Johnsson