Ole-Petter Vaaten’s poetry collection I Hope You Are Doing Ok explores the idea of longing. Longing for life as it used to be. Longing for someone to need you. Longing for those who are gone. Longing for love. At the same time Vaaten’s poetry is exploring getting used to longing. For example, that piece of the sky that existed over the house you grew up in.
Some of the poems also hint at a growing sense of unease about what’s awaiting you in the future, such as old age and death. Some of the poems describe a general unease about a world which is changing at an increasingly higher speed, with unforeseen events such as pandemics, war, and terror – and as part of this a worry not only about how the narrator will handle it, but also about his family. Yet, as the title so hopefully puts it: I hope you are doing ok.