Kurbits, according to a Sw. reference book = 1) another name for pumpkin, 2) decorative element of ethnic dala paintings

Garlands of flowers and fruits, leaves blending, petals hooting as cornets - they can be seen on old dala paintings on walls or cupboards or chests. The painters in the 17- & 18-hundreds called it "to paint roses" or "curls". It is possible that the term kurbits (which in a Sw. bible translation of the early 1700s means calabash gourd) was invented by the poet EA Karlfeldt.

We Swedes are often seen as practical, dull and non-sensual beings, but look at our kurbits! This is gaiety and abundance in a fountain from carpentry and paper! This is nothing unusual in folk art, you can find kins of the kurbits in the Netherlands and in Turkey, for instance.

The kurbits is androgynous - the ring and the pole, the seed and the fruit. I choose to regard the Nordic midsummer pole as a giant kurbits live, as well as the totem pole. During two summers I was very persistent in paintng kurbitses. Socialist ones, festive ones, musical one, classical ones etc. The one reproduced here is the feminist one.

"Behold my kurbits, its raising and style!"
EA Karlfeldt wrote. Karlfeldt is one of the poets I most admire. Today there are authors more necessary for urban generations, but Karlfeldt expresses the best values of rural Sweden, a country lasting well into the 1930s. There were poverty and limitations in it, but Karlfeldt wrote about its harmony and honesty. If you're not interested in such matters, he's one of the most excellent rhymesters our language begot, and in his machismo there's streak of frailty of a strong attraction to my kind of feminism.

"Lustily I rode to a summer feast
over cuckoos' valley, nightingales' hill
rode on that flying, poetical beast
who sometimes carries me, still"

HD in Karlfeldt's study at the loft of the manor house at Karlbo, Avesta.
The walls are sprinkled on paper, on the cornice there's a slim kurbits.

In Swedish I like reading:
Bodil Malmsten
Dan Andersson
Mikael Wiehe
Edith Södergran
Kristina Lugn
Maria Wine & Artur Lundkvist
Ann Jäderlund

In English I like:
AA Milne
Emily Dickinson
Walt Whitman
John Lennon
Melanie Safka

Some international poets who I like in translation are:
Vladimir Majakovsky
Yannis Ritsos
Gabriela Melinescu
Jiménez

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