What Good Does It Do for a Person to Wake Up One Morning This Side of the New Millennium

Nordic Council Literature Prize nominee Kim Simonsen introduces a new poetics to Faroese literature rooted in natural history, philosophy, and the materiality of all things.

The rhetorical title of this collection posits the crisis that is underway. Simonsen asks: as a species among species, all composed of the matter of the universe, how has our compulsion to classify everything hierarchically estranged us from ourselves, each other, and Earth’s ecosystems? Simonsen challenges our anthropocentric pursuit of knowledge, exploring humankind’s relationship with itself as an element of the natural world. What good does it do for a person to wake up one morning this side of the new millennium follows the struggles of its narrator as he reckons with intensifying estrangement from his fellow organisms, gradually turning to the greater kinship of matter to find continuity, connection, and solace.

Kim Simonsen is a Faroese writer. He is the author of seven books, as well as numerous essays and academic articles. In 2014, Simonsen won the Faroese National Award for his poetry collection What good does it do for a person to wake up one morning this side of the new millennium. His newest poetry collection is currently nominated for the Nordic Council Literature Award in 2024.

Randi Ward is a poet, translator, lyricist, and photographer from West Virginia. She earned her MA in Cultural Studies from the University of the Faroe Islands and has twice won the American-Scandinavian Foundation’s Nadia Christensen Prize.