To the Outermost Stars

Stein Mehren “is one of Norwegian literature’s greatest lyricists, and perhaps its finest love poet. His ground-breaking imagery and use of language are intensified by paradoxical turns of expression… The rhythmical force he creates is at times symphonic and melodious, rising towards the ecstatic, or brief, concise and penetrating… his best work earns him a place among Norway’s leading poets…”
Per Thomas Andersen
Norwegian Literary History, Universitetsforlaget

“Stein Mehren has been his own school of lyrical poetry within Norwegian poesy… He wrote impassioned poems with philosophical themes, poems that search for identity or that place humanity in a cosmic world picture… Novel metaphors and lucid images whirl through tales that put life in perspective…”

Fredrik Wandrup
Dagbladet (29 July 2017)

“My love poems are not solely concerned with love. I use it as a metaphor to portray loss, failure, childhood – the best love poetry is as much about life as about love…”
Interview with Stein Mehren by Stein Kjos
at Galleri Haaken