The Dreammaker Trilogy

Jan Erik Vold, Norwegian poet, translator, essay-writer, editor, jazz & poetry artist, was born in Oslo on October 18, 1939. He has published 20 collections of poetry, 16 critical books on literature, a number of poetry translations and edited the collected or selected works by a number of writers. Among the poets he has translated, mostly Americans, are William Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Frank O’Hara, Robert Creeley, Richard Brautigan -- as well as the Nobel prize winners Samuel Beckett, Tomas Tranströmer and Bob Dylan. Jan Erik Vold’s own poetry has been translated into German, Spanish, French, Polish and Chinese. Among his jazz & poetry albums are ingentings bjeller (“bells of nothingness”) with Jan Garbarek (1977), Blåmann! Blåmann! (Telemark Blue) with Chet Baker (1988, 2010), Drømmemakeren sa (“Said the Dreammaker”) with Egil Kapstad (2008), Blackbird Bye Bye with Bill Frisell (2012). His most widespread book is Ruth Maier’s Diary, the editing of the writings of a young Jewish refugee from Vienna, who lived in Norway at the beginning of World War II, until she was arrested on November 26, 1942 and deported from Oslo to Auschwitz. Her diary has been translated into twelve languages. The present collection The Dreammaker Trilogy is Jan Erik Vold’s first collection in English. It consists of his three most recent poetry books Twelve Meditations (2002), Said the Dreammaker (2004) and A Glimpse of the Great White Book (2011). There is a postscript about Vold and his poems written by Walter Baumgartner.