National Identity and Nomadic Subjectivity in Norwegian War Poetry

Abstract

This article aims to explore how subjectivity is portrayed and reflected in Norwegian poetry on World War II and post-2000 wars. The material will include only a small number of anthologized poems from World War II by the poets Arnulf Øverland, Inger Hagerup, and Nordahl Grieg, and contemporary war poetry by Priya Bains and Pedro Carmona-Alvarez. It suggests that Norwegian World War II poems often exhibit a fixed rhythm, include rhymes, and emphasize national identity, utilizing binary oppositions such as “we”–“the others,” “friend”–“enemy”. In contrast, contemporary Norwegian war poetry seems to feature structures that reflect global, nomadic subjectivities. These contemporary works may engage more with fluid identities and intricate networks of connection, moving beyond the rigid dichotomies seen in earlier war poetry in Norway. These insights suggest a shift in how poets express and conceptualize war, influenced by changing global dynamics and understandings of identity and subjectivity.

1. Introduction

War poetry is poetry about war and its events, violence, sufferings, but also victories, companionship, patriotism, and nationalism (c.f. Featherstone 1995). In addition, as Jahan Ramazani argues, war poetry might reflect cosmopolitan sympathies, linguistically, formally, and thematically: “recent criticism has begun to address the global dimensions of a global war—for example, recovering the experience and cultural expression of soldiers from the dominions and colonies, as of observers elsewhere far from the Western Front” (Ramazani 2016, p. 855). He refers to poetry research in which poems reflect the experience of war in an international rather than a national framework (also see Das 2011). Therefore, Ramazani states, “war poems sometimes also have a transnational reach, if we take seriously their ‘cosmopolitan sympathies’” (Ramazani 2016, p. 855). The constitution of subjectivity is inherently political, encompassing ways of framing concepts such as war and precariousness, and the divisions between friends and enemies, “us” and “them”.

This article aims to explore the kind of subjectivity reflected and constituted in Norwegian poetry on World War II and post-2000 wars. The material includes a small number of anthologized poems from World War II by the poets Arnulf Øverland, Inger Hagerup, and Nordahl Grieg, and contemporary war poetry by Priya Bains and Pedro Carmona-Alvarez. The small number of poems that will be analyzed is due to the need to carefully close read the poems to explore structures of nationalism, patriotism, and globalism embedded in them, including how they confirm or challenge binary structures of “we” and “the others”, notions that—according to Ramazani—are less explored (Ramazani 2016, p. 856). The poets in question are representative for the subjectivity and solidarity reflected in war poetry in the two periods. Øverland, Hagerup, and Grieg are among the most canonized and anthologized poets from World War II. Likewise, Bains and Carmona-Alvarez are two prominent voices in contemporary war poetry. Just as important, in the process of choosing a corpus, Øverland, Hagerup, and Grieg represent a national sentiment that endured and evolved into a foundational narrative following the war. This expression aligns with an antagonistic political mindset (see Røst 2025), contrasting with cosmopolitanism and agonism, which appear to resonate more with contemporary poems that engage more with fluid identities and intricate networks of connection, moving beyond the rigid dichotomies seen in earlier war poetry in Norway. These insights suggest a shift in how poets express and conceptualize war, influenced by changing global dynamics and understandings of identity and subjectivity.

2. Circulation, Preservation, Activism

The World War II poems that I will pay close attention to are selected from three anthologies, all bearing the title Norwegian War Poetry. They contain a small selection of Norwegian resistance poems that were distributed illegally in Norway during World War II. There are minor variations in which poems that are included, but many of the poems are the same.

The first two of these anthologies were published in 1941 and 1942. Since these were printed in Sweden by a Swedish publisher, the title bears Swedish spelling, Norsk krigslyrik.1 The third edition, another 1942 publication, is titled in Norwegian, Norsk krigslyrikk, in its original form with a contextualizing subtitle: “Poems that have circulated in Norway during the occupation”. It is worth noting the tense of the verb in the subtitle, “have circulated”, as if the publication comes after the occupation of Norway. A title more in correlation with the time and situation would have been “Poems circulating in Norway during the occupation”. The choice of verb tense clearly signifies that poems were meant to be read in an imagined future after the end of the occupation and the war, an imagined future that exceeds the presence. One of the original editors of the collection, Victor Nøstdal, writes in the preface to the edition published by Gyldendal in 1995 about the collection as a conservatory work, as a memory of poetic resistance and activism during World War II: “In 1942, the idea arose to make a book of the poems that were then ‘on the move’. Four copies were made, typed on carbon paper. A friend was a bookbinder, so he arranged the binding. A safe deposit box was rented under a false name. There, the books remained until the end of the war. I have preserved my copy as a valuable relic.” (Nøstdal and Senneseth [1942] 1995). Nøstdal was a resistance fighter in Bergen during World War II and, among others, worked for the illegal press as a reporter. Since then, he has devoted much of his time to archival and informational work regarding the occupation, including serving as the director of the Nordnorsk Kulturråd (North Norwegian Culture Council), established in 1964.

With the subtitle in mind, it is fair to say that the collection of poems was not intended for distribution but for preservation for posterity. It is a curated collection of poems to be remembered for their significant contributions to activism in the resistance against Nazi Germany during the post-occupation period. As Evelina Stenbeck argues, poems gain an additional activist dimension because they operate outside of the book (Stenbeck 2017). In regard to the collection Norsk krigslyrikk, the poems were performed “outside of the book” for activist purposes while in the book, they are part of our collective, national memory.

What is also notable about these three mentioned collections is that they include many of the same poems. The edition from 1941 contains 15 poems, and the Swedish edition from 1942 contains 19 poems. Nøstdal and Senneseth’s collection contains an additional 8 poems, totaling 27 poems. There is some variation in which poems are included in these three publications, but many of the poems appear in all three. The poets Arnulf Øverland and Nordahl Grieg are well represented, and key names such as Inger Hagerup and Gunnar Reis Andersen are represented with one poem each, Hagerup with “Aust-Vågøy. Lofoten. March 1941” (Hagerup 1942). This is another poem, in past tense, written in memory of the terrible act conducted by Nazi Germany, who burned down the community in revenge of the resistance and loss they experienced in Lofoten, 4 March 1941.

Even though most of these poems are canonized war poems in Norway some also appear in other collections, such as the Danish anthology on war and poetry, War. Poems and Other Texts on War and War Experiences (Nielsen 1983), a collection that also includes poems by Bertolt Brecht, Carl Sandburg, and Pablo Neruda. This applies to two poems by Øverland, as well as Nordahl Grieg’s “Til ungdommen” (“To the Youth”).

In contrast to the situation in Norway during World War II, in which the poems referred to above were written during a time of occupation, contemporary Norwegian war poetry is written in a time in which Norway is not occupied by a foreign country. Still, contemporary wars are felt close, among other reasons because of globalization and the media situation. As claimed by Paul Virilio, our everyday life is militarized (Virilio 1986). In the post-9/11 society and the recent and ongoing wars and conflicts in Syria, Ukraine, and Palestine, consciousness of war, also in Scandinavia, has been intensified, due to the contemporary media situation. In this situation, poets express their solidarity for “the others” and, as I will argue, contribute in constituting a subjectivity different from the one we can identity in war poems from World War II.

Contemporary Norwegian poems addressing modern wars are written by poets such as Priya Bains, Pedro Carmona-Alvarez, Gunnar Wærness, and Bendik Vada. Rather than a few, authoritative collections of war poetry, as were the case in poetry during World War II in Norway, poems are part of a media ecology in which the poems travel, continuously, between situations, media, and languages. The poems are performed in public and in protest relays, they are written and distributed on social platforms like Instagram and Facebook, and they are printed in poetry collections, in anthologies about literature and war, and in journals. For instance, one important resource for the reading and distribution of contemporary war poetry in Norway is “Rødhvitaksjonen—i solidaritet” initiated by Bendik Vada and Priya Bains.2 Vada and Bains describe this initiative as “a solidarity action where Scandinavian poets stand in support of vulnerable authors and writers who create under precarious conditions in their home countries”.3

Poems on war openly flourish, demonstrating the resistance embedded in poetry and its practice, circulation, and performances. The poetic voices of contemporary wars are part of a network of poets, translators, curators, and activists that strengthen their political and artistic function, and keep the poem available, visible, and hearable. I have elsewhere called this situation contemporary poetry’s computational network environment (Rustad 2023). This concept refers to the material and medial situation of poetry, and to a situation in which poetry quickly, with little effort, and without much friction travels between and negotiates media boarders, always altering, appearing in multiple versions at the same time and reflecting an unfinished esthetics and poetry in its becoming. This is a media ecological situation in which poetry is networked and creates networks, including networks for activism and translation. Furthermore, poets who have fled war zones live in exile in Scandinavia as “Fribyforfattere”, organized through the “International City of Refugee” program. Because of activistic networks of poets and translators, others who did not flee, are being published in Norway. This also includes poets such as Hiba Abu Nada, who was killed during Israeli’s bombing of Gaza, on 10 October 2023. Her voice is still available in Scandinavia because her poems have been translated and are distributed by the Norwegian publisher H/O/F. Furthermore, institutions like Deichman (Oslo), House of Literature (Oslo), and Blå (Oslo), and festivals like Oslo International festival, The Norwegian Festival of Literature (Lillehammer), and Nordic Poetry Festival (Hamar) are important agents in the distribution of contemporary war poetry. In solidarity with those who are victims in an ongoing war, contemporary Norwegian war poetry proves Ramazani right when he claims that “war can be, paradoxically, a catalyst for meaningful cross-cultural encounters and reflection” (Ramazani 2016, p. 856).

3. A Unifying, Fixed National-Patriotic Identity

The poems from the Norwegian World War II poetry anthology are patriotic and constitute and confirm a national unifying subjectivity. This is evident in the title of the poems, such as “Til Kongen”, “Norge”, “Tre ganger Norge”, “Vaart Fedreland”, “Til Norge”, “Godt år for Norge”, “Vårt Flagg”, “17. Mai 1940” og “17. Mai 1942”, “Eidsvoll og Norge”, “Det fangne landet” og “Våre menn” (“To the King”, “Norway”, “Three Times Norway”, “Our Fatherland”, “To Norway”, “A Good Year for Norway”, “Our Flag”, “17 May 1940” and “17 May 1942”, “Eidsvoll and Norway”, “The Occupied Country”, and “Our Men.”) Patriotic images, references to “Norway” and the constitution day, and pronouns like “our” confirm a collective and fixed identity and reinforce Norway as a nation, producing a nationalist feel.

By heightening a national identity and patriotism, they strengthen the will to resist. According to Butler, “war seeks to deny the ongoing and irrefutable ways in which we are all subject to one another” (Butler 2010, p. 43). Likewise, Norwegian World War II poems reinforce binary structures such as “we” and “them”. The national identity articulated in these poems reflects the groups to which we are encouraged to feel the closest connection.

The nation as an origin and as a homeland are put forward in, e.g., Arnulf Øverland’s poem “Til Kongen” (Øverland 1942).4

“Til Kongen”

Ditt löfte “Alt for Norge»

det har du trofast holdt.

Om vi stod fram på torget

og ropte på revolt,

om våre ord ble krasse,

deg ledet ingen vill.

Du hörte ingen klasse,

men hele folket til.

Slik skal vår konge være

så rolig og så rank.

Du er vår egen ære,

ulastelig og blank.

Selv på den tunge dagen

da skjold og verge brast,

og da vår hær var slagen,

stod du fremdeles fast.

Mot usseldommen, sviket,

mot niddings leiesvenn,

står samlet hele riket,

vi venter deg igjen.

Om våpenlöse, svake

vi holder ennu stand.

Vi venter deg tilbake,

her er ditt folk, ditt land.

---

Your promise “Alt for Norge”

you have kept faithfully.

If we stood in the square

and shouted for revolt,

if our words grew harsh,

no one would lead you astray.

You heard no class,

but the whole people.

Thus, shall our king be

so calm and so proud.

You are our honor,

impeccable and bright.

Even on the heavy day

when shield and protection broke,

and when our army was defeated,

you stood steadfast, still.

Against cowardice and betrayal,

against the base hireling,

the whole realm stands united,

we are waiting your arrival.

Though weaponless and weak,

we still hold our ground.

We are expecting your return,

here is your people, your land.

The poem by Øverland is one of the most canonized Norwegian poems from World War II, in which patriotism is emphasized as a mean for confirming and maintaining a national identity, in service for a collective will of resistance.

It is structured in three stanzas, of which the first and last concern universal values while the second is related to the specific situation of war and occupation. In the first stanza, in a concluding line written in past tense, the king appears as a unifying figure, exceeding socio-economic layers in the society. The second stanza addresses the king in present tense, “Du er vår egen ære” (“You are our honor”) and refers in definite singular, to events in recent past: the invasion of Norway by the Nazi Germany and the Norwegian forces that temporarily was defeated: “Selv på den tunge dagen/da skjold og verge brast” (“Even on the arduous day/when shield and guardian burst”). Despite this defeat, and because of the values and ideas represented by the king, embedded in the royal motto “Alt for Norge” (“All for Norway”), the people of Norway, according to stanza three, stand united, faithfully waiting for the king to return: “vi holder ennu stand./Vi venter deg tilbake,/her er ditt folk, ditt land.” (“we still hold ground/We are awaiting your return,/here is your people, your land.”).

In these final lines, it is significant to notice the use of the temporal adverb “ennu” (“still”). The word refers to “fremdeles”, another word in Norwegian meaning “still” in the second stanza, unifying the two. This unification symbolizes the bond between the king and his people, who is waiting for his return. The two temporal adverbs indicate that the resistance and loyalty of the Norwegian people do not have an end but continues in indefinite time and into an indefinite future: it says when, not if, the king returns. In the poem, this concerns his already mentioned motto, which is a promise, “Alt for Norge”, his rational behavior, his loyalty, and his egalitarian leadership and reliability, reflected in phrases such as “deg ledet ingen vill” (“no one would lead you astray”), “så rolig og så rank” (“so calm and so proud”), “stod du fremdeles fast» (“you stood steadfast, still”), “du hörte ingen klasse, men hele folket til» (“you heard no class, but the whole people”), and “Du er vår egen ære, ulastelig og blank” (“You are our honor,/impeccable and bright”). These values make up the ethos of the king, an ethos that according to the poem constitutes guiding values for the people of Norway. In the concluding third stanza, these values are transformed to practice: “Mot usseldommen, sviket,/mot niddings leiesvenn,/står samlet hele riket” (“Against cowardice and betrayal,/against the base hireling/the whole realm are standing united”). The point is that the people maintain the resistance because of the king and his values, which in the poem are inseparable from if not also reciprocal to the value of the nation. As stated in the conditional clause, second to last in the poem: “Om våpenlöse, svake/vi holder ennu stand” (“If unarmed, weak/we still stand firm”).

It is a lyric-deictic poem in which its power is to be found in its situated temporality, a temporality that engages the here-and-now and that exceeds the here-and-now situation. Øverland constitutes a “lyric now”, as a complex now that includes both presence and future, the now of the utterance of the poem and all the future now in which the poem will by read and performed. Lyric poems, Jonathan Culler points out, is more often than not written in a nonprogressive present, both to impress “us as something happening now, in the performative temporality of the lyric” (Culler 2015, p. 63), and to “incorporate events while reducing their fictional, narrative character and increasing their ritualistic feel” (Culler 2015, p. 287). The speaker, as a national poet, finds himself being in the position of speaking on behalf of all Norwegians. He situates himself and the “we” in a specific time and place, “her” (“here”), occupied nation. From this time-place, he is in the process of imagining and defining the infinite existence of the nation based on the figure of a rational king and the resistance of the people. This is so both because of the organization of the poem in three stanzas, each representing a temporal dimension, and because of the verb tense in the third stanza. Given Culler’s argument referred to above, the verbs in this stanza should be translated into present continuous in English: “står” (“standing”), “venter” (“waiting”), and “holder” (“holding”). The verb tense strengthens the function of the temporal adverb “ennu”, and signifies that the people are standing, holding, and waiting, and more so, are loyal and united, now and in a never-ending future.

The result is that past and future actions, referred to in the poem, is embedded in the lyric present at the end, in which the present continuous makes previous events significant, also for the present and the future. Because the iterative structure of lyric poems (see Culler 2015), these values are repeated in present tense every time the poem is read, whether aloud in protest rallies or in silence. As such, with the beforementioned word “ennu”, the poem indicates an activistic dimension. By telling each other that one is still holding resistance, confirming both collective loyalty and a willingness to keep on with their resistance.

The national and patriotic values are further strengthened because of the double address in the poem. Linguistically, it addresses the king, who at the time the poem was written and during the occupation was in London. The address is marked in the title, in a letter style, “Til Kongen” (“To the king”), in the use of pronouns such as “your” and “you”, and in lines like “vi venter deg tilbake” (“we are waiting your arrival”) and “vi venter deg igjen” (“we are expecting your return”). The choice of the words “waiting” and “return”, inevitably provides Biblical connotations, aligning the King with the figure of the Christ. He is the one who will show his people the right path, even in times of disbelief: “Om vi stod fram på torget/og ropte på revolt» (“If we stood in the square/and shouted for revolt”).5 The ritualistic sentences, starting with the subordinating conjunction “if”, organize the first stanza, revealing a structure of subordination of the people to the King: “om våre ord ble krasse/du ledet ingen vill” (“if our words grew harsh, no one would lead you astray)”, and “om våpenlöse svake” (“If weaponless and weak”). Here, the subordinating conjunction “if” makes the linguistic structure correlate with the societal structure in which the people are subordinated to the king and the nation. Therefore, the poem also addresses the people of Norway, “we”, those who show their loyalty to the royal crown by fighting for the freedom of their country.

In another classic Norwegian poem from World War II, Nordahl Grieg’s “Norge” (“Norway”), the nation is given a similar force, a force that unites the people. It is an apostrophic three-stanza poem, in which each stanza contains eight lines, with a fixed rhythm and a less fixed rhyme scheme. In this poem too, the lyric address changes. In the first stanza, rather than the kind, the speaker addresses Norway as the homeland (“fædreland”). In the second stanza, it addresses Norwegians (“du”), of which identity is defined by national values, formed by the sound or song of Norway: “Hörer du landets sang?/lytt til en liten tone,/det er din egen klang” (“Can you hear the song of the country/listen to a little tone,/it is your one sound”). Furthermore, in the third and last stanza, it is a united “we” who are addressed by the speaker and repeatedly asked to join in a collective ritual, inhabited by the Norwegian soul, sound, and identity. This nationalist identity is presented as a root, an origin, “hellige moderfavn” (“holy maternal arms”). As a root for the Norwegian’s identity, it does not appear as neither dynamic nor negotiable. On the one hand, the poem presents a romantic image of Norway, identified as “stillhet og sommernætter” (“silence and summer nights”), and on the other hand, Norway is powerful and strong: “i velde og makt og tross -/som seilene fyldes av stormen -/det er seilas for oss” (“in power and strength and defiance/as sails filled by the storm/it is sailing for us”). The last stanza is structured by goals and means. The former image is the goal, what one fights for, the latter is the mean, what one fights with.

The poem is an anthem, a genre that connects in a similar way as Øverland did, the nation with God. In a metapoetic line containing a simile, the speaker compares the nation with this genre: “gå som en hymne om livet” (“walk like a hymn in life”). Originally, from Greek poetry, “hymn” was used in weddings to praise Hymenaeus. In the modern tradition of Western poetry, it is a common genre to find in national poems, such as the national anthem of Norway, “Ja, vi elsker”, and in religious poems, praising God. The figure is a topos in much national romantic poetry, as it is in war poetry from the first and second world wars. In this tradition of nationalistic war poetry, as exemplified by both Øverland and Grieg, there is an alignment of the national and the divine. Grieg’s poem demonstrates how the poem by referring to the genre, strengthens the connection between God and the nation, the divine and the origin of the homeland: “når det gjelder det störste av alt/vårt fedreland, Norge det dyre” (“when it comes to the greatest of all/our fatherland, Norway the pecious”).

The binary structure and the fixed national identity are also dominating in occasional poetry. One of the most canonized Norwegian World War II poems, Inger Hagerup’s “Aust-Vågøy. Mars 1941”, is written in an everyday language, containing short lines, fixed rhythm and rhyme patterning. It repeatedly calls to mind the brutal reprisal brought to the small communities in Svolvær, Norway, by the Nazi occupants on 4 March 1941. A less known example is Nordahl Grieg’s poem (Grieg 1942) written in memory of one of the famous leaders of the resistance forces in Norway, Martin Linge, who fell in battle in 1941, “Skuespiller Kaptein Martin Linge. Falt under kampene på Målöy julen 1941” (“The actor Captain Martin Linge. Killed in the battle of Malöy, Christmas 1941”). Linge was both an actor and a military captain during the war, and the poem aligns the two, as both careers involves a performance:

In the seventh stanza, it says:

Timen kom, han kjente scenen

stille hav og hvite fjell.

Det var Nationaltheatrer

bygget opp av Norge selv.

Mot de tyske rekker gikk han

i sin norske uniform,

med en håndgranat i neven

og tok publikum med storm.

(p. 32)

---

The time arrived, he knew the stage

quiet seas and white mountains.

It was the National Theatre

built by the nation

Agains the German soldiers he went

in his Norwegian uniform

with a hand grenade in his fist

and took the audience by storm.

In the allegory, nation, Norway, Nordic nature, and the figure of the hero are reciprocal, constituting a national-romantic environment as a stage for heroic events and performances. The nation appears as the fundamental and original power for the Nordic environment, and it is the nation and this environment, the seas and the mountains, that both is his stage and that make him perform the heroic act of defending the country of which he sacrifices his life.

The next to last stanza is a celebration in which end correlates with the end of Linge’s life: “Her fikk skuespiller Linge/lysende sitt gjennombrudd” (“Here, actor Linge/got his shining breakthrough”), and the final lines: “Det var slutt—og teppet falt.” (“It was the end—and the curtain fell.” (p. 32). But, rather than ending in silence, as Giorgio Agamben has described the end of a poem (Agamben 1999), this poem ends in an applause from the audience which, because of the allegory, is both the audience in theater and the Norwegian people applauding Linge for his sacrifice. Interestingly, since the poem was performed from stages during the occupation, and the performance of it presumably received applause, one might imagine a double applause, one directed to the one performing the poem and one offered to Linge for his performance and sacrifice.

The image ‘life as a stage’ might re-wake Shakespeare’s poem “All the world’s a stage”, though in Shakespeare’s poem the human being, in the seventh and last stanza, does not exit life with the same applause as offered to the war hero Linge in Grieg’s poem. According to the poem, what makes Linge a hero to be remembered and worthy a poem, is not his performance on stage, but his sacrifice in battle for his homeland. The poem starts by undermining Linge as a great actor: “Det var gjerne mindre roller/han i fredens dager fikk” (“It was mostly miner roles/he was offered in times of peace”) and “Ingen følte under krigen/i sitt hjerte noen savn/da de sløyfet av plakaten/nederst, Martin Linges navn” (“During the war no one missed/by heart/when removed from the poster/at the bottom, the name Martin Linge”). In order to defend Linge’s choice of replacing the theater stage with the battle field, and to elevate his role as a war hero and martyr, and hence, the idea of Norway and the homeland as the most precious and worth fighting and dying for, the poet needs to establish a hierarchical structure in which being an actor has no value compared to fighting for the nation. The allegory confirms what Grieg writes in another poem titled “Norge”: “når det gjelder det störste av alt/vårt fedreland, Norge det dyre.» («when it comes to the greatest of all/the home of our fathers, Norway.”) This is a structure embedded in much patriotic war poetry, expressed in antagonistic hierarchies like “we” versus “the others”, nation versus individuality.

Nationalist identity is not an enclosed chapter belonging to the past, neither is it reserved countries occupied by foreign power or war fought outside the nation-state. According to Butler, it is still a strong contributor to identity making and often driven by affective strategies: “In the contemporary wars in which the US is directly engaged, those in Iraq and Afghanistan, we can see how affect is regulated in support both to the war effort and, more specifically, nationalist belonging.” (pp. 39–40). Of course, nationalism heighten as a backdrop of the attacks on 9/11, of which these wars mentioned are a consequence. Likewise, we still find binary structures in contemporary poems about war in Norway. For instance, in her poem “Sitater om krig i Europa” (“Quotes on War in Europe”), Sumaya Jirde Ali (2022) revitalizes these binary structures to articulate a form of racial solidarity, suggesting that we feel a stronger connection to those suffering in the war in Ukraine than to those in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Middle East, and North Africa. The poem highlights that which is Butler’s argument, that often war creates a division between those who are close and considered valuable and those whose lives are less grievable and recognized as life.

4. Resistance and Global, Nomadic Subjectivity

The poems mentioned above constitute a relational “we”, framed within the concept of the nation. However, much contemporary war poems present a different perspective, actively opposing a nationalistic framework. They respond to what Butler considers a solidarity that recognizes our interconnectedness and our dependence on anonymous others, extending beyond just those within our immediate sphere. As such, these poems reflect a subjectivity grounded in difference and acknowledge a universal vulnerability.

Priya Bains’ poem “Å skrive” (“To Write”) examines the politicized notion of the nation as a dominant lens through which to think, write, read, and act (Bains 2022). The poem is both metapoetic and activist, highlighting “nation” as the only visible word in a dictionary, thus reflecting the prevailing discourse during times of war and suffering. Here, “nation” is depicted as a construct that shapes our collective consciousness and influences our capacity to imagine. In engaging with the dictionary, the poet adopts a stance of resistance.

Jeg åpner ordboken, men i den står bare ett ord. Jeg blar fram og tilbake, holder den opp mot lyset.

Ingenting. Kun dette ene ordet igjen: Nasjon

Jeg bestemmer meg for å skrive noe på en av de blanke sidene. Men hånden vil ikke gripe om

pennen. Jeg får panikk. Papiret lyser hvitt. Jeg forestiller meg at jeg skriver dette: Skrive. Hvit. Panikk

Men ingenting skjer.

Jeg forsøker å forme hånden rundt en usynlig penn.

Skrive: betong, kattemat, folkemasse.

Rød blomst.

Det går ikke.

(…)

---

I am opening the dictionary, but there is only one word in it. I am leafing through it, holding it up to the light.

Nothing. Only this one word left: Nation

I decide to write something on one of the blank pages. But my hand won’t grab the

pen. I panic. The paper glows white. I imagine I am writing this: Writing. White. Panic

But nothing happens.

I try to shape my hand around an invisible pen.

Writing: concrete, cat food, crowd.

Red flower.

It doesn’t work.

(…)

The poem is organized neither in fixed stanzas nor with a fixed rhythm and rhymes. Some of the lines are written in prose, containing sentences structured with regular syntax describing an everyday activity, other lines contain only a few or a single word. In the poem, “nation” can be regarded as both a synecdoche and a metaphor for a society and a country’s official politics in which nation as a framework for thinking has authority and sets the condition. As a synecdoche it is the sum of that which makes up Norway, its history, culture, and politics, and as a metaphor it signifies the deep roots of national identity embedded in the history and culture of Norway, as we for instance saw represented in the World War II poems by Øverland and Grieg. “Nation” appears as that which is made distributable.

The poem demonstrates poetic writing as a form of resistance and further emphasizes resistance in writing as both activism and creation. In confronting an epistemological hegemony represented by a specific genre and tradition, the speaker reclaims agency and responsibility. A dictionary, known for its vast and diverse vocabulary, serves as a symbol of a knowledge society structured around the concept of the nation as hegemonic and superior. It functions as a medium with ontological and epistemological power, reflecting what is included and what is excluded. With its institutionalized authority, it dictates the framing of war and regulates the discourse and visibility surrounding it. Against this hegemonic tradition—one that shapes genres and cultural practices in organizing words and worlds, as well as producing and distributing knowledge—the poem emerges as an (and perhaps even the only) alternative. Through the writer’s resistance, as reflected in her efforts to think, write, and create by expanding current frameworks, the poem becomes an alternative or an extension of the one-word dictionary. It showcases a different distribution of the sensible, illustrating how poetry can resist dominant narratives and how writing poetry can draw attention to alternative modes of being in the world, as well as different approaches to war and suffering.

Words suggested, such as “concrete”, “cat food”, “crowds of people”, “red flowers”, “square”, “monopoly of violence”, “bullet hole”, “bus”, “poem”, and “revolution” establish images of war, suffering, violence, and vulnerability. They become an assemblage of relations that appeals to readers’ imagination, offering them the task of putting the words together and imagine the kind of worlds that appear. “Red flower”, which is repeated twice in the poem and is given a prominent place as it is singled out in a line earlier in the poem and repeated in the very last line, offers numerous connotations. It could of course be a conventionalized symbol of love, famously represented in Robert Burns’ “A red, red Rose” (1794) or, in combination with the word “betong” (“concrete”), it might symbolize hope and resistance, as in photographs depicting a red flower growing through cracked asphalt or floors of concrete. Related to the freedom of speech, openness, and speaking the truth, Louise Glück’s poem “The red poppy” from her collection The Wild Iris (Glück 1992) provides a meaningful and meaning-expanding background.

Glück’s metaphorical poem does not directly engage in war, but the image of the poppy might connect to one of the most famous poems from World War I, John McCrae’s “In Flanders fields the poppies blow”, in which the poppy might both by a symbol of nationalism and of cosmopolitan sympathies (also see Ramazani 2016). The position of the speaker in Glück’s poem is not the same as in Bains’ poem. In Glück’s poem, we are facing the mind and voice of a speaker, a red poppy, addressing the condition of human and humanity in what might be interpreted as a world of climate crisis and extinctions of species. Still, in both poems, the speaker speaks from a position of vulnerability and desperation, and in both cases the response towards a limited and destructive rationality are emotions. In Glück’s poem, the speaker proclaims “I am shattered”, in Bains’ poem, the speaker meets the suppressive and limiting mindset, determined by the undeviating concept of nation, with hopelessness: “Det er håpløst” (“It is hopeless”), “det er ikke mulig å tenke klart” (“it is impossible to think clear”), and “Jeg får panikk” (“I panic”).

In Bains’ poem, the speaker’s (or writer’s) response is pivotal, as it embodies both resistance and creativity. The act of creating the poem serves as a form of resistance that unlocks potential. Aligning with Agamben’s notion of creativity, this making involves resistance that ultimately leads to emancipation: “I think, however, that the potentiality liberated by the act of creation must be a potentiality that is internal to it. Only in this way does the relation between resistance and creation, and that between creation and potentiality, become intelligible” (Agamben 2017, p. 36). The creation of the poem arises from a lack of concepts beyond “nation” for thinking and acting. In this sense, the poem engages with a given tradition in both politics and poetry; however, this engagement is embedded with a resistance that redefines making as something more than mere representation. Therefore, the poem encompasses emancipation from what it opposes, allowing it to act within a framework to instigate change.

In Agamben’s idea of creativity, which he elaborates from Deleuze, resistance and potentiality include both making in the sense of revealing a potential and the freedom not to make. The two, potentiality and potentiality-not-to, are not oppositions, but part of the act of making. This is what makes poetry an event, not fixed, but semantically open, always in the process of meaning, and embedded in the poem is the contingency of making, what the poem becomes, what it might have not become, or what “might have been different” (Agamben 2017, p. 43). Agamben, referring to a verse by Dante, describes this as a tremble. In Dante’s poem, it says: “the artist/who for the habit of art has a hand that trembles”. This hand that trembles is not defect, Agamben argues, but pinpoints the creative process. The hand shakes because it at once draws on habits and inspiration and in the contingency of the making deviates from habits and the source of inspiration.

The resistance in Bains’ poem is expressed as activism in that the poet tries to write but according to herself fails: “Men ingenting skjer” (“But nothing happens”). This is writing as a performative-political act, to make something happen and more so, make a change. Paradoxically, when nothing happens, something happens. The poem is in its becoming in the speaker’s attempt to write, because her writing resists and because embedded in writing is creativity and hence resistance. The resistance appears in the hand that shakes and in the affective response: She panics. In the poem, the speaker says that her hand “won’t grab the pen” and that she panics. This is making in an act of habits, and deviation from habits and inspiration, in which inspiration comes from a different place than habits. When the speaker utters “It doesn’t work.”, this is not to be interpreted as the insufficiency of the politics of poetry, since her attempt actually makes the poem succeed. Rather it expresses the potentiality-not-to, the part of the creative process that according to Agamben deactivates habit (Agamben 2017, p. 44). The poem is as an attempt of resistance in which the poet deactivates thinking and writing from the perspective of nation. She panics as a supreme mastery, panicking in the form of potentiality.

Bains emphasizes the distribution of the sensible and dictionary as a mode of approaching the world, territorizing and framing it. Therefore, she also engages in the constitution of subjectivity. She writes in opposition to a structure in which identity is regarded as fixed and unified. This is even more evident in Pedro Carmona-Alvarez’s (2022) poem, “Det som skjer når vi flykter (Marisol)” (“What takes place when we flee (Marisol)”)6, a poem that reflects a fluid identity and a nomadic subjectivity. The first part of the poem goes like this:

(…) først raser landet sammen slik elvebredden når det regner for mye

moren er ung

og faren er ung

jeg ser dem på fotografier

senere senere senere

en grønn genser, nei

et grønt miniskjørt, nei

en lysebrun høyhalset genser i en park

på armen meg

med øynene halvt igjen

snart vil landet mørkne, nei

snart

vil landet falme

svinn

syknes og farens genser skal bli grå

morens skjørt grå og parken også

grå

som trærne er det og gresset er det og himmelen over hjembyen er det og de grå

helikoptrene med de grå sønnene som faller ned fra skyene er det

senere senere senere ser

jeg

min tankes fiolinlærer skutt mot en mur

muren er av take

det

vil si, grå

som fremtiden er det

mens moren er ung

og faren er ung

---

first the country collapses like the riverbank when it rains too much

the mother is young

and the father is young

I am seeing them in photographs

later later later

a green sweater, no

a green miniskirt, no

a light brown turtleneck in a park

on the arm me

with my eyes half closed

soon the country will darken, no

soon

the country will fade away

shrink

sickness and the father’s sweater will turn gray the mother’s skirt gray

and the park too

gray

like the trees is it and the grass is it and the sky over my hometown is it and the gray

helicopters with the gray sons that fall down from the clouds is it

later later later I

see

my aunt’s violin teacher shot against a wall

the wall is made of fog

that

is to say, gray

like the future is

while the mother is young

and the father is young

Carmona Alvarez’s poem conveys fragments of memories and photographs associated with fleeing war, oppression, and vulnerability, narrated by a speaker who exemplifies what we might characterize as a form of nomadic subjectivity (Braidotti 1994). In this context, nomadic subjectivity takes on a dual meaning. It refers to a subject as a war refugee, whose identity is shaped by the speaker’s and her family’s nomadic history, while also signifying a subjectivity in the process of becoming. As the poem unfolds, the speaker’s identity is continually reshaped, engaging with relational subjectivity—a subjectivity formed by an ever-evolving and interconnected assemblage of objects, memories, people, and events.

The subject in its becoming is inherently relational, composed of fragments. This notion correlates with the poem’s form, which also manifests as a fragment, excerpt, or remnant, punctuated by the ellipsis “(…)” and paradoxically followed by the word “først” (“first”). This structure creates a tension, suggesting that something exists prior to this “first”, as indicated by the parentheses. The line “first, the land collapses like the riverbank when it rains too much” reinforces this idea; a land must exist—and be created—before it can collapse. Just as the land teeters on the brink of collapse, the poem itself embodies a sense of fragmentation.

Furthermore, the title, “From The Holes in the Encyclopedia”, emphasizes this experience and interpretation on multiple levels. The word “fra” (“from”) suggests that the poem has been extracted from a larger whole, indicating its connection to a prior context. Additionally, the “encyclopedia” too, here as a symbol of a fragmentary memory, appears as a fragmented archive of knowledge. One could question whether an encyclopedia filled with gaps is an encyclopedia. Encyclopedia, from Latin encyclopaedia, refers to general knowledge, knowledge that reflects the status quo of science, a genre that according to Cambridge dictionary deals “either with the whole of human knowledge or with a particular part of it”.7 On the other hand, encyclopedias contain fragments of knowledge, they are assemblages of short(er) texts, and in relation to the poem, because of the gap, the encyclopedia becomes a medium of becoming, just as knowledge always is in its becoming, just as memory and subjectivity always is in its becoming. As such, the lack of knowledge and memory is not a loss in a Lacanian sense, but rather a lack that is included in contact zones, as part of the relational and nomadic subject.

In the poem, the “I” is depicted from its babyhood, where memories are gradually revealed and shaped through photographs and stories told by others, constituting an ongoing process of becoming:

resten

av livet hører jeg

ekkoer

refrenger

forsvinning

marxisme

marinen

celle

ære

anstendighet

hette

over hodet

torturbenk

offisersalong

svermer i mørket

tusenvis av lik

et akvarium av feber

og hverdag

dette er en historie jeg har fortalt før

ikke til deg, kanskje

eller jo

til deg

(…)

the rest

of my life I hear

echoes

choruses

disappearance

Marxism

the navy

cell

honor

decency

hood

over the head

torture bench

officers’ lounge

swarms in the dark

thousands of corpses

an aquarium of fever

and everyday life

this is a story I’ve told before

not to you, maybe

or, yes,

to you

(…)

The speaker lists traumatic events, with few exceptions presented fragmentarily, a form often used in representation of traumatic flashbacks. They appear without chronology and causality, but in sequences of short images of recollections and gaps, signified with blank spaces. More than traumas, this excerpt underscores how the speaker expresses a relational subjectivity, continually in its becoming. It says «resten/av livet hører jeg (“the rest/of my life I hear”), in which the phrase “the rest” denotes something unfinished but in process.

This conception of subjectivity is evident from the very beginning of the poem, even in the portrayal of the speaker as a baby: “de dreper folk moren drar og faren drar og jeg jeg er barnebylten” (“They are killing people the mother leaves and the father leaves and me, I am the baby in a bundle”). The bundle too resembles something messy and disorganized. As such, the refugee baby is not only carried in a bundle, but embodies the chaos and uncertainty, that which makes up a disordered life amid the act of fleeing. Through the combination of “child” and “bundle,” the subject as a baby emerges as a product of these tumultuous events.

The memory of the mother and the father too are fragmented, uncertain, negotiable, defined less by their inherent qualities and more through functions, events, and negations:

Faren er journalist, nei

faren er kidnappet og arrestert, nei

faren er opposisjonspolitiker, nei

The father is a journalist, no

the father is kidnapped and arrested, no

the father is opposition politician, no

The poem contains several lists like this, conveying a fragmented and uncertain memory, perhaps shaped by the many stories that the speaker has been told, as a baby and later, about who the father and the mother were. Rather than the speaker’s father and mother, the father and mother are made into general and always changing figures in which identity is nomadic. As such, the list is what the father and the mother were, were not, and could have been. Even more, this reflects a collective “we” among refugees, where fathers and mothers embody all these attributes. Above all, they share the experience of being refugees, making them collective archives of their experiences. Notably, the lines “faren er et arkiv” (“the father is an archive”) and “moren er et arkiv” (“the mother is an archive”) are the only two in the list that are not negated. Still, this is the contact zones of potentiality and contingency, as their identity is formed by what they were, were not, but could have been.

This subjectivity is nomadic, reflecting the nature of refugees who are constantly in motion, without a permanent residence and therefore lacking stable jobs or functions. The poem responds to its own title by illustrating that a flight results in a nomadic existence and identity. In Section 4, those who flee are portrayed as recognizable images that we have all seen on television. As the poem states, “du har sett det på tv” (“you have seen it on TV”). They are refugees whose identities are unstable, unfixed, and changeable—always in a state of becoming—defined by their surroundings or the absence of what they might have been or could have been. This is evident in references to “de lange veiene” (“the long roads”) “pleddene” (“the blankets”), “hundene og kattene” (“the dogs and the cats”), “handlevogner og sekker” (“carts and bags”), “de som har hatt stuer” (“those who have had living rooms”), “kjøkken” (“kitchen”), “arbeid” (“work”), “brød” (“bread”), and “proustromaner i bokhyllene” (“novels by Proust on bookshelves”). Their identities are further expanding and shifting by their actions during their journey, such as “de som gir barna mat og selv bare drikker kaffe” (“those who are feeding the children, and themselves only having coffee”), “har tilhørt et arbeiderparti” (“have belonged to a labor party”), “de liberale de radikale kristendemokratene” (“the liberals the radical Christian Democrats”), “går og går” (“are walking and walking”), “venter og venter” (“are waiting and waiting”), and “de som blir stuet i lastebiler” (those who are stowed in trucks”).

Again, the temporality of the poem is significant. The title itself suggests a sense of time through the subordinating conjunction “when” and the present tense of the verb “to flee”, which in translation should be expressed as “fleeing”. The essence of the poem is determined by this subordinate clause—the act of fleeing. Notably, “fleeing” instead of “fled” implies an ongoing condition in which “we” are perpetually fleeing; flight is presented as an action that is happening now and that will continue into the future, framing fleeing as an unfinished event.

Moreover, the poem is written in the present tense, a common choice in poetry, which facilitates a convergence of time between the utterance of the poem and the events it describes. This temporal convergence signifies that just as fleeing from war is an ongoing action, the “we” that is fleeing from war are fleeing as the poem are being read. This notion leads us to an understand that the violence and war depicted in lines such as “and the gray/helicopters with the gray sons falling from the clouds” and “I see/my aunt’s violin teacher shot against a wall” represent experiences that the speaker has witnessed and continues to witness or experience among others through her repeated fragmented memories. Likewise, as readers we too will experience these memories and the nomadic subject in its becoming every time we read the poem.

Perception and memory align in such a way that the poem is structured around the displacement of time and, consequently, memories. It asserts this concept in the second line of the poem: “jeg ser dem på fotografier senere senere senere en grønn genser, nei/et grønt miniskjørt, nei” (“I am seeing them in photographs later later later a green sweater, no/a green miniskirt, no”). The phrase “later later later” can be integrated into the preceding sentence, suggesting that the speaker later in life sees his parents on photographs. This interpretation may highlight redundancy, as a photograph is always viewed after a moment has been captured. Alternatively, the term “later” can link to subsequent phrases, where its repetition signifies shifts in time and memory. This suggests that the speaker’s recollections are uncertain and still evolving. The repetition of “later” connotes an ongoing displacement, reflecting three present moments: the actions themselves, the photographs of those actions, and the memories associated with them, including the act of viewing the photographs. The displacements and negations are further highlighted by the transitions in color and clothing; first, the sweater is green, then the sweater becomes a miniskirt, and ultimately the sweater becomes light brown and turtlenecked. These shifts symbolize how the country, its colors, and the future fade. As the poem says, “soon the country will fade”. Likewise, the future, as articulated in the poem, is equally gray—unknown and uncertain.

All of this unfolds as we engage with the poem, a reminder that resonates in the last line of the first part:

min tantes fiolinlærer skutt mot en mur			muren er av tåke det
vil si, grå	som fremtiden er det	mens moren er ung		og faren er ung.
---
my aunt’s violin teacher shot against a wall			the wall is made of fog
that is to say, gray	like the future is	while the mother is young		and the father is young.

The subordinating conjunction “mens” (“while”) temporally binds everything together: the utterance and its subject occur simultaneously. Within this structure, the country collapses, war unfolds, the speaker observes photographs, and the future remains unknown, all while the mother and the father are portrayed as young. This convergence is encapsulated in—as previously mentioned—what Culler terms the lyrical now, allowing the poem to create an experience in which past, present, and future are intertwined, made into one unfinished state, one that is perpetually in a process of becoming.

Carmona-Alvarez’s poetic strategy unveils themes of incompleteness and relational subjectivity. As mentioned, the poem appears as a fragment and provides the reader with a hint of continuity and relations to works. The title includes the name “(Marisol)”, in cluster, a title that might refer to an apocalyptic play from 1992 by José Rivera titled Marisol, set in New York City, in which the city has been turned into a war zone where angels and giants fight for power, and where vulnerable humans need to take side. Even more, Marisol is the name of the main character in Carmona-Alvarez’ novel, Chiquitita (2023), an elderly woman reflecting on her life as a young woman and refugee, and among others how she as a little baby fled with her mom and dad.

I emphasize this process of becoming because both the subjects and the act of utterance are in a state of flux. The poem illustrates subjectivity as an evolving entity, highlighting three crucial aspects: (1) the subject as relational; (2) the subject as continually transforming; and (3) the subject as constituted by perception, experience, and memories. In this context, memories are not fixed but rather ongoing evocations, as evidenced by the numerous negations present throughout the poem.

5. National Identity and Global, Nomadic Subjectivity

With regard to war, identity, and subjectivity, both similarities and differences exist between the poems from World War II and contemporary poems, as well as among those within the two periods in questions. Notably, the World War II poems typically feature a steady rhythm and rhyme schemes, emphasizing a patriotism rooted in national identity through binary structures such as “we” vs. “the others,” “friend” vs. “enemy,” and “good” vs. “evil”. These oppositions reflect fixed identities rooted in nationalism and function as normative frames for both values and actions. This constitution of identity is directed inward and backward, with identity functioning as a means of mobilizing and sustaining acts of resistance and loyalty.

In this context, it is interesting to note that during World War II, Øverland, Grieg, and Hagerup were deprived of their homeland and in that sense involuntarily in a state of nomadism. Grieg and Hagerup lived in exile, while Øverland was a war prisoner. Still, in contrast to the contemporary poets mentioned above, including Ali, their writing reflects a sense of belonging and implies a longing for a return to their homeland.

Contemporary poems employ free verse and exhibit a diverse range of forms, largely moving away from binary thinking. The fixed forms and rhythms that were prevalent and significant in war poems from the First and Second World Wars—which represented resistance through collective marching and uniform identity—are absent in contemporary poetry. Instead, these poems depict images of war and evoke a global, nomadic subjectivity characterized by fluid identities and intricate networks of relationships. They present subjectivity in its becoming—open to change and oriented outward, rather than being inwardly focused on self-affirmation.

Some of these differences can be contextualized within literary and poetic history. At all, some of them are unsurprising given that the poems originate from different literary periods and under different political circumstances: the World War II poems were written before the modernist debate in Norway reached its peak in the 1950s, while the Norwegian monarchy, constituted in 1905, was still young, and in a situation in which the nation experienced a threat from inside by the Nazi friendly Quisling regime. Still, they also reflect specific interpretations of war’s implications, particularly in shaping subjectivity. It seems reasonable to claim that Øverland’s and Grieg’s poems, as they are representative for the poems in the beforementioned collections of Norwegian war poetry, function as ways to establish a canon of not only war poetry but even more national poetry, poetry as part of the representation and establishing of a national identity. Power both constitutes and derives from identity, and as argued by Mary Kaldor, political and cultural expressions during wars make selective use of memory in order to establish “a one-sided and/or parallel effort to construct unidimensional political identities as a basis for power” (Kaldor 2013, p. 336). The poems by Bains and Carmona-Alvarez both engage in the question of power and memory related to subjectivity. They both include authoritative and comprehensive genres—the dictionary and the encyclopedia, respectively—constituting public knowledge, discourses, and collective memories. This critical aspect is absent in the World War II poems, which rather than questioning power, memory, and subjectivity represent actions in war. Similarly to what a dictionary and an encyclopedia do, these poems engage in the making and selection of collective memories, what we need not to forget. As such they form a collective identity. While Øverland and Grieg use “nation” and “the king” as points of reference in order to establish a unified and normative identity, contemporary war poetry, represented by Bains and Carmona-Alvarez, explores writing as resistance and nomadic subjectivity as ways of framing war.

In this context, the main pattern identified in these poems reveals a distinction between what Røst calls antagonistic and cosmopolitical modes of memory (see Røst 2025, p. 5; Bull and Hansen 2016, p. 395). The former presents a simplified version of reality, characterized by “good” vs. “bad” and “friends” vs. “enemies.” As Røst notes, this antagonistic mindset is highly nationalistic, aiming to promote national superiority through memories and through an identity formed by a shared history (Røst 2025, p. 5).

Ali’s poem, although contemporary, also highlights dominant national sentiments and dichotomies as a necessity to confront her readers, whether to elicit shock or confirmation. In contrast, Bains and Carmona-Alvarez adopt a cosmopolitical perspective. Carmona-Alvarez shifts his focus to the victims rather than on the “good” and “bad”, while Bains critically underscores how war is framed through the concept of the nation, which discriminates, defines who is most vulnerable, and directs our attention inward rather than on the perceptible and tangible issues of war and suffering. As Røst states, “cosmopolitanism claims that the world can become a harmonious community based on humanitarian values and human rights” (Røst 2025, p. 5).

Although this article critically examines nationalistic and what might be perceived as unidimensional identities presented in Norwegian World War II poetry, it does not argue that these representations of war, occupation, and resistance should be disregarded. Given the context of a nation occupied by Nazi Germany, the poems, the reading events, and the collections to which they belong became powerful and necessary anchors for a collective experience and narrative about national identity and the struggle for resistance. These poems illustrate the rhetorical figures and motifs employed in complex ways to heighten the sense of danger and to help individuals understand themselves during the crises of war. In this context, the concepts of nation and monarchy, and the structures embedded within them, serve as modes of mobilizing collective resistance.

Poetry, including war poetry, is a nomadic “thing”—an event that is read, performed, interpreted, and transformed across various media and contexts. Consequently, the concept of war poetry is inherently transformative; it is constantly evolving, adapting to the time, place, and circumstances of war. It establishes or explores identities—whether fixed or fluid, nationalistic or nomadic—and demonstrates how poetry plays a crucial role in shaping perceptions of national and global belonging as well as different conceptualizations of war. The framing of war significantly influences its interpretation and shapes its memory culture. As shown, poetry can serve as an activist tool to disrupt, challenge, and transform ideas about identity, memory, and politics, promoting more inclusive forms of subjectivity.