The Poetry of Halfdan Rasmussen

Born in Copenhagen in 1915, Halfdan Rasmussen was educated at the Roskilde vocational high school and the international school in Helsingør. He is the author of one novel and thirty-one volumes of poetry—fifteen of these written for children—and the recipient of many literary prizes. His Tosserier (Nonsense), a book of verse for adults, was reprinted seven times in as many years, evidence of the fact that Rasmussen's work is as popular among adults as it is among children. His poems for children have been set to music and recorded; they can be heard on Danish television programs, on the radio, in schools, and in the streets. The morethan-casual tourist in Denmark may notice Halfdan Rasmussen posters on the walls of pubs in Tivoli Gardens and illustrations (by Ib Spang Olsen) from Halfdan's ABC (Carlsens illustrations-forlaget, 1967) for sale in Den Permanente, and he may well leave Denmark whistling a merry melody whose lyrics he cannot remember, but which begins, "God morgen, sol!"

Rasmussen's musical lyrics for children capture some of the nonsense English-speaking readers expect in nursery rhymes as well as some of the more serious questions and concerns of young children. Rasmussen's poems are populated by a world of interesting, sensitive, silly, and sometimes very Danish children. All Danes know and love Kasper Himmelspjaet, Nanett, Fraekke Frederik, and Nikolaj. Rasmussen's children value friendship, family unity, and the brotherhood of man; they believe in love and the power of the imagination; they laugh at man's idea that he can achieve mastery over the mystery of nature; they are naively interested in the human body and its functions; and they respond strongly to the old ideals of truth and beauty. Rasmussen is a romantic, but he does not idealize the children about whom he writes. Some of them are naughty, selfish, boasting. Yet there remains in each of them an air of innocence which allows young readers to smile at them and shake their heads.

Because his tight formal verse relies to a great extent on sound-patterns, it is attractive to young children, easy for them to memorize, and fun to sing and recite. The sound-patterns, however, make Rasmussen's verse difficult—sometimes impossible—to translate. The assonance of "vaskebjørnens børnebørn" is lost in "the raccoon's grandchildren"; the alliteration of "Norske nisse nyser ikke" is lost in "Norwegian elves don't sneeze"; the charming pun of "staa og tisserpaa en tissemyre" is almost impossible to translate into an English as innocent as Rasmussen's Danish (our offering is "stand and wee-wee on some wee, wee ants"). It may be because of this difficulty that so few of his poems for children are available in good English translations.

The following translations of poems from Børnerim (Det Schoenbergske Forlag, 1964) are close to Rasmussen's own original meanings, music and sound patterns, with the exception of the meter of "way out in the forest" and the name of "Little painter Rasmussen." As translators we wished to capture Rasmussen's wit, charm, and delicacy and to retain the possibility of singing the translations to the music which has been composed for the Danish poems. We find Rasmussen's voice lyrical, his tone not condescending to children, his music delicate and lilting. We are pleased to introduce him here and to help him make his work better known in the English-speaking world.

    An inventor named Benton    from Inventorland    invents more inventions    than anyone can.

    He's invented fork-mittens,    invisible pants,    and blue bedroom slippers    for house-elephants.

    And soon he'll invent    some tree-coats made of leather,    so trees can stay outside    in all sorts of weather!

Good morning, sun! Good morning, morning sun!You shine on trees and flowers and everyone,and down on Jens and Karl, those smarty-pants,who stand and wee-wee on some wee, wee ants.

But wee ants aren't for boys to wee-wee on,and so I shout, "Hey, stop your naughty fun...