Thoughts recorded on a Hike in Stavern, Norway June 4th, 2012

When we travel we always seem to think about what others have seen or said about a place. The picture postcards of the past or the blogs of now. It’s difficult not to impose our expectations or historical presuppositions on experience.  And yet travel, too, is just the everyday:  A good pillow; a stomach ache or a hankering for a glass of wine before dinner. Questions as tiny as ‘When will the next coffee be?’ And ‘How long will it take to get to Stavern?’  Sometimes it’s best to resist squishing a place into what we think it should be and just let it be what it is: Board-and-batten red houses like my own studio, the Poet Station; two longtime friends speaking Norwegian on a bench near a harbor; your husband’s face, tired and handsome on a train going south.

About Christine Hemp

Poet and writer Christine Hemp has aired her poems and essays on NPR’s Morning Edition; she has sent a poem of hers into space on a NASA mission to monitor the birth of stars; and her essays have appeared in such publications as the Iowa Review, Yale Anglers Journal, and the Boston Globe. Her awards include Harvard Extension School’s Conway Award for Teaching Writing, a Washington State Artist Trust Fellowship for Literature, and an Iowa Review Award. Her poetry collection, That Fall, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2011. Hemp teaches at the University of Iowa Summer Writing Festival.
Poems and Ponderings

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