The first Tove Ditlevsen book I ever read was her powerful memoir trilogy, Childhood, Youth, Dependency. Her storytelling left such a deep impression on me that when I heard about her newly translated poetry collection, The Young Girl in Me Who Will Not Die, I couldn’t wait to read it. The title, haunting and beautiful in itself, immediately pulled me in.

Coming to this poetry collection after reading her memoirs made the reading experience even richer. So many of the poems felt like glimpses into different stages of her life, and knowing her story made it easier to catch all the layers of meaning hidden between the lines. It felt a little like revisiting familiar places, but through a more intimate and lyrical lens.

Ditlevsen’s words remind us that even though times change, places change, the heart of what we feel, such as love, longing, loneliness, stays so much the same. Her poetry manages to be deeply personal and yet somehow universal all at once.

And even though the poems were originally written in Danish, the English translation captured her voice so beautifully. I honestly forgot at times that I was reading a translation, that’s how raw and vivid her emotions still felt on the page. I’m really grateful to the translators for preserving that honesty and spirit.

My Favorite Bits

• Winter’s Night

I want to die on a winter’s night like this,
when the snow is quiet as the stars,
and the relief of the cold, white ground,still undisturbed, will never escape me.

When I am as open as on this night,
when the Earth’s immense heart beats,
and in a dream that has no end,
I glimpse what will never be mine.

I want to die in ashen moonlight
awhirl with a thousand snowflakes,
they will flutter through my hands and hair
and wrap me in an icy shroud.

Not tonight when life is calling
with such sweetness in its voice,
and little sorrows are easy to forget,
the way fallen stars are forgotten.

But another night my heart sees faintly
like shadows among forest branches,
when my weary spirit is more alone
than a planet in its silent orbit.

Then there will be no before or after.
I will beg the moon to rise,
for I fear the freezing darkness,
I cannot resist its power.

The night must be perfectly quiet,
I will not taint it with my cries,
only the moon-white snow gives comfort
and can grant me the peace I seek.

• Summer Night

(..)
if you want to know me, ask the green waves,
I am as reckless as they are, never knowing what I want.
The night is so warm and every sin goes unpunished.

• There Lives a Young Girl

There lives a young girl in me who will not die,
she is no longer me, and I no longer her,
but she stares back when I look in the mirror,
searching for something she hopes to recover.

There is no one else in the world she can ask:
Where are the earnest smiles, the carefree dances?
Where are my dreams and the joy of twenty?
Tell me, have you made the most of my chances?

I try to catch that pale, shimmering gaze,
try to silence her questioning refrain,
and in the depths of my heart I hear a regret,
softly dripping like the sound of rain.
‘Your dreams were flimsy, child, and doomed to fail,
your innocence ruined by the truth you were told –
your budding hopes fell to the ground
the night reality invaded your soul.

‘You had a girl’s dream of a husband and baby,
and you got what you wanted but were still alone,
so you remained in childhood’s wondrous land,
while I am left roaming a world of stone.

‘It is by your sheer strength you have not died,
but live on somewhere as a faint likeness,
though I have sold your dreams for a roof and bread
and brought you pain I mistook for happiness.

‘And my only salvation is feeling your voice
as a surge in my heart’s languid beat –
you are my defence, my unrest and deepest comfort,
constant and true through time’s fickle retreat.’

There lives a young girl in me who cannot die
until I tire of believing I once was her.
She stares back when I look in the mirror,
searching for something she longs to recover.

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Author: Tove Ditlevsen

Publication date: 11 March 2025

Number of pages: 192 pages

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