Literature and Fiction · Hardback

Coloured, Stained, Now

Norwegian title: Farget flekket nå

Eira Søyseth

Who are we in relation to others, to our family? What does sizes such as heritage and family matter? In the poetry collection Coloured, Stained, Nowit’s all about understanding oneself as part of generations of humans, generational heritage and traces, “mother lines” as one of the poems put it. But this is also a feminist collection of poetry about being a young woman today; about concentration and distractions, about the intrusive, all-consuming, intense world where one is supposed to find one’s place.

In Coloured, Stained, Now there’s a narrator with ink on her fingers. She views herself but is also being viewed. She seeks to understand herself in the chaotic present, but is discoloured and stained by her past and present, by family and stares, both others and her own. Which external parts do you have to explore to find your inner self?

In the middle of a summer full of lilacs, beer and falling in love, a conversation, in the middle of her own birth. She’s in the middle of all the adhesive, sticky and glittery which makes up the now, in the middle of something coloured and stained.