Mountains of Kong

Splendid and surprising prose poems from one of Norway's most imaginative poets

The sixty-one prose poems collected in The Mountains of Kong find magic in the little absurdities of everyday life and are populated by an unpredictable cast that includes kings and codfish and elephants, a couple looking for a surrogate for their tears, and a lemming on the run.

Presented here in both English translations and their original Nynorsk, and with an introduction by acclaimed poet Stuart Ross, Straumsvåg’s poems are a new kind of map that will deliver you to places you’ve never imagined.

Dag T. Straumsvåg was born in 1964 in Kristiansund, a city on the western coast of Norway, and grew up in the nearby Tingvoll county. He has been employed as a farmhand, sawmill worker, librarian, and sound engineer for a radio station in Trondheim, where he has lived since 1984. He is the author and translator of nine books and chap of poetry, including A Bumpy Ride to the Slaughterhouse (2006), The Lure-Maker from Posio (2011), both from Red Dragonfly Press, Nelson (Proper Tales Press, 2017), and But in the Stillness (Apt. 9, 2024). His work has appeared in a wide variety of journals in Norway, Canada, and the United States.

Born and raised in Red Wing, Minnesota, Robert Hedin is the author, translator, and editor of two dozen books of poetry. The recipient of many honours and awards for his work, he has taught at the University of Alaska, the University of Minnesota, St. Olaf College, and Wake Forest University. He is co-founder and former executive director of the Anderson Center at Tower View, a residential artist retreat in Red Wing.

Stuart Ross is the author of over 20 books of fiction, poetry, and personal essays, as well as scores of chapbooks. His most recent books are the poetry collection The Sky Is a Sky in the Sky, the memoir The Book of Grief and Hamburgers (winner of the 2023 Trillium Book Award), and the short story collection I Am Claude François and You Are a Bathtub. Stuart won the 2019 Harbourfront Festival Prize, the 2017 Canadian Jewish Literary Award for Poetry, and the 2010 Relit Award for Short Fiction. Since 1979, Stuart has run a micropress called Proper Tales. He lives in the tiny town of Cobourg, Canada, on the north shore of Lake Ontario.