masters of nothing (Paperback or Softback)

Janus Kodal, born 1968, was only 20 when he was accepted by the noted Copenhagen School of Creative Writing, at which time he moved to that city. At the age of 23 he published his first collection, Antologi (1991) with the renowned publishing house Gyldendal. Two years later he received a national grant to write his second book, the long poem ingentings mestre (masters of nothing/nothing's masters), which has been described by some critics as the first major work of young Danish poetry. During the mid-1990s Kodal widened his knowledge of world literature through his editing of Copenhagen-based magazines Banana Split and The Blue Gate. He was responsible for the presentation of an array of voices in Copenhagen, including Gennadi Aygi, John Ashbery, Andrej Bitov, Haraldo de Campos, Michael Palmer, and Rosmarie Waldrop.

Susanne Jorn is a fiction writer and literary translator. She has a masters in sinology, a masters in American literature and a Comprehensives for a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature.The same year as her debut in the Danish poetry magazine Hvedekorn (1970) and while she was in Japan on a Monbusho grant (1969-1971), Susanne's debut poetry collection, the splinters, was released in Denmark. In 1971, she moved to the United States and has since travelled to Japan many times.She wrote under her mother Kirsten Lyngborg's name until 1988 and has since used her father Asger Jorn's name, starting with the publication of her fairy tale collection The Dancing Donkey.Her work is heavily inspired by Chinese and Japanese poetry traditions and her many years in the US and Japan. The influence from visual art is significant, especially in her use of color.Many of her books are illustrated by visual artists such as Pierre Alechinsky, Carl-Henning Pedersen, Asger Jorn, Yasse Tabuchi, Yoshio Nakajima, Gao Xingjian and Jytte Rex. Conversely, Susanne has written poems and fairy tales to the work of visual artists. The latest example of this is The Bird in the Forest from 2014, featuring 53 poems and fairy tales for work by 26 artists from the Museum Jorn Collection.In Passion Cycle she wrote linked poetry (renshi) with Japanese poet Hajime Kijima.As a literary translator Susanne Jorn only translates poems. Mainly Susanne Jorn has translated poems from the Chinese and the Japanese such as Yang Lian, Hanshan, Shuntaro Tanikawa and Kazuko Shiraishi. But she has also translated Danish poets into English like Peter Laugesen, Maj-Britt Willumsen, Naja Marie Aidt and Helle Nyberg: In 2000 Peter Laugesen's Teach Me Star of Night! / Lær mig nattens stjerne! was published as an artist book at The Bird Press with eight etchings by Thorsten Dennerline. Three of Maj-Britt Willumsen's poems appeared in American Poetry Review Vol. 20/no.1, 1991. Six poems from Naja Marie Aidt's The House Across (Huset overfor, 1996) appeared in Prairie Schooner Number 3, Fall 2000. And one longpoem by Helle Nyberg appeared in American Poetry Review Vol.34/n.2, 2005. In 2018, Susanne was the recipient of The Drachmann Award.Her works are translated into eight languages, July 5th 2022 being the latest publication of the poetry collection Andalusiske øjebliksbilleder i november / Andalusian Snapshots in November in David McDuff's translation at Spuyten Duyvil in NYC, USA. After moving to Copenhagen, Denmark in 2000 and while continuing to write and translate poetry, Susanne has worked with a series of Scandinavian composers and musicians. Since 2009, she has performed live with Celtic harp player Helen Davies while reading a selection of poems and fairy tales.susannejorn.dk