Niels Hav

MAN, YOU ARE STUPID

You are really stupid
when you can kid yourself
into thinking you’re smarter
than the lacerated pedestrian
who screams with rage
ambushes himself with curses
and insults, because he has forgotten
his keys, his name
even his home address.

You know perfectly well where he lives.
Those are your shoes he walks around in.
It’s you he yells at,
it’s your name, it’s on the door.
Come on, let’s go home.


Translated by Heather Spears


Niels Hav is a full-time poet and short story writer living in Copenhagen with awards from the Danish Arts Council. His publications in English include We Are Here (Bookthug), and poetry and fiction in magazines including The Literary Review, Ecotone, Exile, The Los Angeles Review and PRISM International. In his native Danish, he is the author of six collections of poetry and three books of short fiction. His work has been translated into several languages, including Arabic, Turkish, Spanish and Chinese. He has travelled widely in Europe, Asia, and North and South America.


Heather Spears is a Canadian writer and artist living in Denmark. She has published four novels, twelve collections of poetry and three books of drawings. She has won many awards in Canada, including The Governor General’s Award for Poetry. Her latest collection, I can still draw (2008), was short-listed for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award. She travels widely and has drawn at many international festivals, and in hospitals in the Middle East, Europe and America.