from Epos
by Ellen Nordmark
introduced and translated by Gina Abelkop
Ellen Nordmark’s Epos is a poetic epic that interrogates the cosmos, underworld, and current global political landscape through the intermingling of contemporary tragedy and ancient mythologies. Blending a melodic cacophony of voices ranging from Donald Trump and Osama bin Laden to Inanna and other ancient goddesses and historical figures, the book – actually two books: Through the Gates of Babylon, from which this excerpt is taken, and All of the Babies Born, presented back-to-back in one binding and meeting at an epilogue placed in the middle – looks at the history of the universe from as far away as the Big Bang and as close to home as the Declaration of Independence. Nordmark investigates the role of the U.S. in major global events and the circulating affects that accompany them, choosing 9/11 alongside the Big Bang as starting points for thinking about our contemporary moment. Epos engages history on both the grand and granular scale, functioning not as a political treatise but rather as a playful, many-times refracted storytelling project concerned with the spiraling, never-ending nature of the many different kinds of beginnings that unfurl into the eternity of now. Nordmark’s aim seems to be to think through the meanings, use, and adaptability of global mythologies rather than try to answer the impossible question of how the past as we imagine it has become the world we now occupy.
from Epos
THROUGH THE GATES OF BABYLON
yes we exist
tic
sic
mic
drop
chapter 1 A NOSTRIL
for stargazing
DONALD: I leave my door open.
hanging
in grandmother’s home-atoma
scraping the sky
hear how
she drips
scratching
history the skin
and hurling herself with the words
the dirt
terra, terror terra
terror
OSAMA: My brothers, the door is still open.
terra maymoon
TREATY OF JEDDAH: An explanatory map is attached.
stack the village on mama
earth air water fire
(oil)
DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE: To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
stomach breast
DONALD: I am here to deliver a simple message.
streaming
between heart and mouth
between Jeddah and Manhattan
so simple in its loathing
bored in its joints
like babyfat in its swaddle
OSAMA: In two days you are going to get big news and you are not going to hear from me for a while.
like the bog
fate mnemo
sweet synec
salt doche
cream and pitch
blend them
the gods boil petroleum
in the basement
- Diagenesis creates kerogen. Bitumen is formed when the water is forced out of proteins, lipids and carbohydrates through concentration under pressure, temperature and microbiological reactions.
- When the temperature and pressure are raised the kerogen is broken down further and becomes oil.
- The oil is pumped from the earth.
- The oil is heated to 662-752 degrees Fahrenheit and vaporized, and the molecules are separated.
- The temperature is raised to 932 degrees Farenheit in order to remove further molecules.
- Finally the air-polluting substances are removed, particularly sultan.
ME: Petrus changed name so that the gods had something to build their temple on: though the outer core glows, the inner is hard.
in the darkness the light is boiled
THE CITY: The longer the better, so that that the flavors have time to come out.
standing wounded without
the power to fall
happiness
the holy powers
hang
open
me
and my eyestone
heavy
and the laymen incinerate
the core the star
hickory dickory dock the snot went
up the clock
play with fire
respiration indignation
OSAMA: The one who controls the oil controls the world economy.
the mitochondria’s inner folds
expand
resonance ignorance
oil soil
terra terror
king and queen
wink
ME: Little star there. Cellular respiration in a square.
reduce the droplet
to an ocean
the stone
to a city
INHABITANT OF JEDDAH: The name of the city itself, if it is pronounced in the right way, means grandmother.
take the thorn from
the mouth
the leaf has something to say to you
DONALD: Yeah, I don’t believe it. No, no, I don’t believe it.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
INHABITANT OF JEDDAH: If it is a lie, it is a thousand-year-old lie.
the tree with a foot in the earth
and hand in the sky
Tiamat Abzû
INHABITANT OF JEDDAH: We have a mayor in the city and all kinds of political heavyweights. But the one who actually controls Jeddah is Bakr bin Ladin.
the corner of the mouth
is the city’s wings
angular cheilitis
candida fermenting inflammation
concealing and forgetting
DONALD: I may now wait for construction to stop, for interest rates to go up– then the city will desperately need Trump City.
the compressed tree’s acceleration
terror mayday
PROLONGATION OF THE TREATY OF JEDDAH: The present treaty has been drawn up in English and Arabic. Both texts shall be of equal validity.
blood mucus black yellow bile
(oily)
DECLARARATION OF INDEPENDENCE: It becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among them the powers of the earth.
the body the laymen
also the concrete will wither
bitter
bitumen
bite into me
but
the moon shrinks and trembles
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
it doesn’t matter
from where the last sense once was
there is only a kind of memory
it will come
but it isn’t
now
is
boom boom
deity
misted mumbled
boom boom
my heart goes
in bolt circular orbit
nanananananana
the tongue’s twisting
aimless
at birth the spine is stretched out
queenlike
rye in
bread
porridge
we break
at the fifth vertebra
sticky
in the skull
a gamble
to be born on
cement your skeleton under
meat and fat
oily or fried
turpentine mayonnaise
DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE: We must therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation.
(spread)
mineral vegetable animal ethereal
(out)
PROLONGATION OF THE TREATY OF JEDDAH: (Personal and Secret).
objective for subject-watching
DONALD: Four days after the Declaration of Independence was signed, the Liberty Bell echoed through the streets and alleyways of Philadelphia, calling citizens of the city to the first public reading of the celebrated document. Today, freedom continues to ring proudly throughout the United States and around the world because of the service and sacrifice of our Nation’s veterans and military members, who have fearlessly answered the call of duty. From the battles of Lexington and Concord to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the members of our armed forces have demonstrated remarkable patriotism and unrivaled courage.
vault arch dome
column
OSAMA: For the rest of my life I stayed in Hejaz, moved between Mecca, Jeddah, and Medina.
fortification
fusion
SAUDI BINLADIN GROUP: The Binladin story is beginning.
ten seconds of silence
fission
TRUMP ORGANIZATION: Donald J. Trump is the very definition of the American success story.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
fiction
come i want you in me
Babylon breathes
cell by
cell
burn
baby
barn
shadowed by
the garden
hanging
beauty itself draws the veil away
uncovers itself
it isn’t up to you
DONALD: I started off – thank you – I started off in a small office with my father in Brooklyn and Queens, and my father said – and I love my father. I learned so much. He was a great negotiator. I learned so much just sitting at his feet playing with blocks listening to him negotiate with subcontractors. But I learned a lot.
OSAMA: This latest aggression is the greatest catastrophe to have befallen Muslims since the Prophet died. It is about when the Christian army, which consists of the Americans and their allies, began the occupation of the country with the two holiest places, Islam’s own territory, the cradle of Islam, the source of the Prophet’s mission, the place where the Kaaba stands.
Epos
Modernista, 2024, 756 pages
Rights: the author
We are grateful to Modernista and to Ellen Nordmark for granting permission to publish this translated extract.
Ellen Nordmark made her poetry debut with the acclaimed collection Cor ne edito /edit /Chili con carne. In 2019 she was awarded the Lars Gustafsson fellowship.
Gina Abelkop is a writer & translator living in Athens, GA. She is the author of the poetry collections Darling Beastlettes & I Eat Cannibals.