Retranslating Poetry with Runes: A Ritual for Poet-Translators

Katrine Øgaard Jensen is a writer and a translator from the Danish. She is a recipient of several fellowships and awards, including the Danish Arts Foundation’s Young Artistic Elite Fellowship in 2020 as well as the 2018 National Translation Award in Poetry for her translation of Ursula Andkjær Olsen’s book-length poem Third-Millennium Heart (Broken Dimanche Press/Action Books, 2017). Her translation of Ursula Andkjær Olsen’s Outgoing Vessel (Action Books, 2021) was a finalist for the 2022 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation. Jensen’s latest translation, My Jewel Box, also by Ursula Andkjær Olsen, was published by Action Books in March 2022.

Ursula Andkjær Olsen (b. 1970) made her literary debut in 2000 and has since published nine collections of poetry and one novel, in addition to several dramatic texts and libretti for operas, such as Danish composer Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen’s Sol går op, sol går ned and composer Peter Bruun’s Miki Alone, awarded the Nordic Council Music Prize in 2008. Olsen has received numerous awards for her work, including the Danish Arts Foundation’s Award of Distinction in 2017, the 2012 Montanaprisen award for Det 3. årtusindes hjerte (Third-Millennium Heart, Broken Dimanche Press/Action Books, 2017), and the 2015 Danish Critics Prize for Literature for Udgående fartøj (Outgoing Vessel, Action Books, 2021). Since 2019, Olsen has served as head of the Danish Academy of Creative Writing. Her latest poetry collection, Mit smykkeskrin (My Jewel Box), was published by Gyldendal in 2020 and Action Books in 2022.