Oh, how it slursOh, how it sees doubleOh, how it cannotartejaculate itselfSo rotten and decrepita geyser sprayingfrom pelagic HadesIt’s all aboutmy own “death”Everything is visibleI don’t want to see it Den feministiska depressionenÅ vad den sluddrarÅ vad den ser dubbeltÅ vad den inte kanartejakulilera sigSå förruttnat torftigtmed en spruttande gejserur pelagialen HadesDen handlar bara ommin egen “död”Allting synsJag vill inte se det
Feminist Depression
Aase Berg
Translated from the Swedish by Johannes Göransson
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“Feminist Depression” from AASE’S DEATH: by Aase Berg.
Published by Black Ocean on October 7, 2025.
English Translation Copyright © 2025 by Johannes Göransson.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.
Photo:
Caroline Andersson Renaud
Caroline Andersson Renaud
Aase Berg (born 1967 in Stockholm) published her first book, Hos Rådjur, in 1997. This has been followed by a range of books, including poetry, essays, novels and YA novels. She has received a host of prizes and awards in Sweden and abroad, including Aftonbladet’s Literary Prize and the Karl Vennberg Prize. Several of her books have been translated into English, including With Deer, Dark Matter, and Hackers (all published by Black Ocean Books).
Johannes Göransson (born 1973 in Lund, Sweden) is the author of several books of poetry, most recently Summer and (with Sara Tuss Efrik) The New Quarantine, as well as books of prose and criticism, such as Transgressive Circulation: Essays on Translation. He has translated such poets as Aase Berg, Ann Jäderlund, and Eva Kristina Olsson into English. He is the editor of Action Books and teaches at the University of Notre Dame.
One might expect a book by Aase Berg with the title Aase’s Death to be dark, and it is. You may also expect it to be parodic, and maybe it is that too. But if it’s parodic, it’s darkly parodic. A defiantly dark laughter animates the book.
“Despite the way Berg implicates the reader in what amounts to body horror, by some alchemy she ends up transforming the reader’s initial fright into feelings of febrile fascination.”
—Jeff VanderMeer for The Atlantic
“The poems in Aase Berg’s latest collection, Aase’s Death, feel like dispatches from the lightless place in the ocean’s deepest pits. Hers are poems of the abyss, its irresistibility, its absurdity, its gooey splendor and despair.”
—Nina Maclaughlin
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