Born in Roskilde, Denmark in
1960, Thomas Boberg moved at the age of two with his mother and smaller sister
to Copenhagen. He did not meet his real father, now a painter in northern
Italy, until he was 14. The father he knew remarried and divorced his mother,
who became a social worker, several times over the next years. His mother died
at the age of 58.
For much of Boberg's life he has enjoyed traveling. As a high school
exchange student in 1977-1978, he lived in Aberdeen, South Dakota, an
experience he describes in his book Americas. He also worked on a
Wisconsin farm when he as 21 years old.
After finishing high school in Denmark, he traveled to Southern Europe,
North Africa (Egypt and Sudan) and India. In 1986 he moved to Barcelona for
four years, where he met his wife Patricia, a filmmaker. Their son, Mateo, was
born in Copenhagen in 1990. But the family soon moved on to Lima, Peru, where
they lived for twelve years and where they still have an apartment.
Boberg started writing poetry when he was 19, publishing his first book,
Hvæsende på mit øjekast (The Hissing of My Glance), in 1984. Since then,
he has published ten new books of poetry; his selected poems, Digte på
vejen—et udvalg (Poems on the Road—A Selection) appeared in 2004. Boberg
also writes prose works, which he views as the "other side of the coin," so to
speak. Besides Americas, he has written travel journals and diaries such
as Sølvtråden (The Silverthread) and a travel diary following the journeys
of Ernesto Che Guevara, and, most recently, Invitation til at rejse (An
Invitation to Travel).
As well as embedding his poems in the several locations of his travels,
Boberg has an eye for the surreal and ultra-real in his poetry. He is
particularly fond of classic writers such as Fernando Pessoa, César Vallejo,
Franz Kakfa, and modern Scandinavian authors such as Gunnar Ekelöf [see PIP,
volume 1], Edith Södergran [PIP, volume 2], Karen Blixen, and Hans Christian
Andersen. In 2000, Boberg was nominated for the Nordic Literary Prize.
Quoting from Boberg's poetry, critic Carsten Jensen has written:
"'Nothing is possible here where I am / but nothing is impossible either.' Let
Thomas Boberg's words stand as [my] conclusion…of a poet who has the rare
ability to burst apart the provincialism of Danish poetry and straddle the
continents."
BOOKS OF POETRY:
Hvæsende på mit øjekast (Copenhagen: Glydendal, 1984);
Ud af mit liv (Copenhagen: Glydendal, 1985); Hvid glød
(Copenhagen: Glydendal, 1986); Slaggedyret (Copenhagen: Glydendal,
1987); Vor tids historie (Copenhagen: Glydendal, 1989); Digte 1990 (Copenhagen:
Glydendal, 1990); Marionetdrømme (Copenhagen: Glydendal, 1991); Vandbærere
(Copenhagen: Lindhardt & Ringhof, 1993); Pelikanens flught
(Copenhagen: Lindhardt & Ringhof, 1993); I firserne (Copenhagen:
Lindhart & Ringhof, 1996); Under hundestjernen (Copenhagen: Lindhart
& Ringhof, 1997); En stående aftale (Copenhagen: Lindhart &
Ringhof, 2002); Dighte på vejen—et udvalg (Copenhagen: Lindhardt &
Ringhof, 2004)
