UThe subtitle of Nova Gullberg Zetterstrand’s new book of poems reads “Journals”. A journal can be a medical narrative as well as a personal or work-related diary, and the word captures quite well what kind of text this is: personal yet concise and detached. The poem hunt considers its memory images with an outside view that registers clothes, body parts and places. How they look and what they signal. The medical theme is included, with scenes from both conventional and alternative care visits.
Why are journals plural? The text jumps between moments and environments but at the same time gives a cohesive impression: here is a self that looks back on moments in life as a girl and young woman; middle age here is thus the time between childhood and adulthood. The location is Stockholm’s inner city, where you can sit in a café or shop at Impuls. Where a clock tower burns down and remains as a sooty hole in the background. Where the female role models are sleeping fairytale princesses, nurses with lip augmentation and slightly drunk mothers.
