''Alphabet'' is one of the most well-known poems of

Inger Christensen Inger Christensen (16 January 1935 – 2 January 2009) was a Danish poet, novelist, essayist and editor. She is considered the foremost Danish poetic experimentalist of her generation. Life and work Born in the town of Vejle, on the eastern J ...

, who was broadly considered to be Denmark's most prominent poet. The poem was originally published in 1981 in Danish as . An English language translation by

Susanna Nied Susanna C. Nied is an American writer and translator. Life Her work has appeared in periodicals such as ''Poetry'', ''APR'', ''Grand Street'', ''Tin House'', ''Two Lines'', ''Poetry East'', and ''Scandinavian Review'', and in anthologies such as ...

won the American-Scandinavian

PEN Translation Prize The PEN Translation Prize (formerly known as the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize through 2008) is an annual award given by PEN America (formerly PEN American Center) to outstanding translations into the English language. It has been p ...

in 1982.

Structure

''Alphabet'' is a systematic poem, in which each of the fourteen sections of the poem is tied to a letter of the alphabet and the number of lines found in each section is dictated by the

Fibonacci sequence In mathematics, the Fibonacci numbers, commonly denoted , form a sequence, the Fibonacci sequence, in which each number is the sum of the two preceding ones. The sequence commonly starts from 0 and 1, although some authors start the sequence from ...

. (The first section, "A", has one line. The last section, "N", has 610.)

Themes

''Alphabet'' deals with themes of nuclear war and ecological devastation. As the poem progresses and each section lengthens, an increasing number of elements related to destruction, death, and ecological devastation are introduced. The sections progress through the alphabet, finishing on the letter "N", for nuclear destruction, suggesting a premature end to the enumeration of splendours. The use of the Fibonacci sequence, Christensen later realised, was particularly appropriate for a plea that life can continue. "I found out after I had written alphabet that many plants follow these numbers. For example, sunflowers are ordered with the Fibonacci sequence - it's the way the seeds are placed."

Reception

The book was reviewed in ''

Publishers Weekly ''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of ...

'' in 2001: "As used here with controlled repetitions, the ibonaccisequence gives the whole an almost medieval sense of restriction Abstracted cold war fears and post-'70s ecological concern and alienation give way to litanies of real world outrages ... which culminate in a post-nuclear holocaust nightmare, with birds and children somehow having survived in caves. The scenario may seem dated, but the threats remain very real, and Christensen's poetic appeal for sanity and humanity remains an abstracted call to action."

References

{{reflist 1981 poetry books Books by Inger Christensen Danish poetry collections Gyldendal books Nuclear war and weapons in popular culture Ecopoetry Fibonacci numbers

Structure

Themes

Reception

See also

References