Ars Poetica Cancrizans
Daniel Helsing
The rules are:
Nothing in the image may be altered
Find the right framing
Find the right distance
Find the right angle
Silence
2:34 AM
Seagulls crying through the window on rooftops
Light candlesticks
Apothic Red
Autrement
Gnarly Head
Inta inlevelsemedel †
Fiskmåsemaffian styr natthimlen med järnhand ‡
Redo
Find the right angle
Find the right distance
Find the right framing
Nothing in the image may be altered
: are the rules
——————
† Roughly, “ingest (or conquer) the means of, or
the agent of (in the case of a substance),
immersion; of empathizing; of vividly imagining
something; of doing something with expression,
as in att läsa med inlevelse (‘to read with
expression’).”
‡ Roughly, “The seagull mafia rules the night
sky with an iron fist.”
Daniel Helsing lived in California and Nevada for five years before moving back to his home country Sweden in 2023. He holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Lund University and is a co-editor of the poetry magazine Populär Poesi. His poetry has appeared in ē·rā/tiō, Magasin Opulens, Ordkonst, and Santa Barbara Literary Journal. He resides in Malmö and teaches at Lund U. Daniel Helsing is online at danielhelsing.com.