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Søren Ulrik Thomsen © Robin Skjoldborg
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Søren Ulrik Thomsen (b. 1956 in Kalundborg), is one of Denmark’s most popular poets and spent his childhood on the Stevns Peninsula south of Copenhagen. In 1972 he moved to the Danish capital. His debut collection was City Slang (1981). This has been followed by seven further volumes of verse and several collections of essays, and a best-of book, Samlede Thomsen (2014).
Thomsen is a master of the small gesture. With apparently effortless casualness he makes everyday objects collide with theories – in a diction that merges laconic expression with pathos and humour. Love, dying, mourning and happiness are the great questions that light up Thomsen’s poems like spaceships on a dusty office desk.
To accompany Rystet spejl (Shaken Mirror; 2011) an album was released in 2013 recorded by him with six young musicians from Det Glemte Kvarter. Their joint range extends from almost transparent sound landscapes to full-blown poetry-funk, a widely ranging synthesis of words and music between jazz, pop and avant-garde.
Thomsen is also a translator. Together with Jørgen Mejer he has translated Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex (1990) and Euripides’ The Phoenician Women (1998) into Danish. Søren Ulrik Thomsen has been awarded many Danish literary prizes and fellowships and has been a member of the Danish Academy since 1995.
Publications (selection):
in Danish:
City Slang. 1981
Ukendt under den samme måne. 1982
Nye digte. 1987
Hjemfalden. 1991
Det skabtes vaklen. 1996
Det værste og det bedste, 2002 (illustrated by Ib Spang-Olsen)
Rystet Spejl, 2011
Samlede Thomsen, 2014
in English:
Selected Poems, Meeting Eyes Bindery, 1999
Music (selection):
POWER. Det Glemte Kvarter. Oplæsning Thomsen, Sony Music 2016