As an Ostrich Regards Its Wings

As an Ostrich Regards Its Wings is Thorvald Steen’s seventh collection of poetry: a book-length poem about running, marathoner Grete Waitz, and death. The poem begins with the speaker’s admiration for Waitz. Living with a muscular disease, he takes up running on his doctor’s advice, hoping to slow the degeneration of his muscle cells, and models his running style on hers. There is something almost desperate in the attempt. Later, when Waitz herself falls ill and refuses to hide it, he finds himself following her example in this, too.

In As an Ostrich Regards Its Wings, Steen weaves personal experience together with recent history. Narrative, biography, and vivid imagery come together in a form that feels both original and unexpected. The collection has clear affinities with his previous poetry book, The Halibut, which Jan Erik Vold called “an original collection of poetry unlike anything else we have in Norwegian.” (Dag og Tid)