The Poet & The Wizard Sweden Tour: August 2023
A Scandinavian Summer
Yes, the rumors are true! This August, Ars Poetica founder LAMARKS and her fiancé, the wizard Devin Person will be touring the southern half of Sweden + Copenhagen seeking magic, language, performance, and oral tradition.
Our Swedish Itinerary:
Arrival at ARN 8/3 8am
STHLM 8/3-6
Road trip to Vimmerby 8/7-11 (space to make stops anywhere along the way)
VIMMERBY 8/11
Småland Magic Retreat in a 14th century homestead by the river Mörrumsån 8/12-17
CPH + the louisiana literature festival 8/18-20
MALMÖ / LUND / öSTERLEN 8/21-24 (can move about skåne anywhere)
GÖTEBORG 8/25-???
~ open week still unplanned ~
Depart ARN 8/31 10am
Learning Swedish as a Swedish-American Poet
As a bit of background: I (this is LAMARKS speaking in first person now, by the way) am about 85% Swedish as far as DNA tests have told my parents (I’ve got a bit of German and Scottish on my mom’s side). My grandfather was a baby when his parents arrived via Ellis Island from the seaside town of Gävle, about four hours north of Stockholm, in the 1920s. Side story: the experience of going to Ellis Island and finding the hand-written record of their arrival was spiritually moving and opened up a whole piece of my ancestral consciousness that I hadn’t had previously. It was at Ellis Island that our family name went from Markusson to Markuson. No time for that extra “s” in the land of milk and honey!
Instead of staying in NYC or moving to the midwest, they opted to travel overland to the rugged and undeveloped desert area just east of Los Angeles: Modjeska Canyon, in what would become Orange County. Eventually, my grandfather grew up and settled down with my grandmother, another Swede who had a fascinating life of world travels too, in that region. The street where they built their midcentury ranch home (still standing!) is named Markuson Road.
Though my father grew up in a 100% Swedish family with his paternal grandmother who spoke almost no English, the language was not passed down or spoken much in the home other than as it related to delicious Swedish foods or small phrases of love or greeting. And both sides of the family lost touch with their respective roots in “the motherland.” It wasn’t until I was a teenager that my dad rekindled an interest in reconnecting with second cousins in Gävle, and I (already avidly studying Spanish) started to occupy myself with learning about Swedish language and culture. Finally, when I graduated high school I went to Europe to visit a friend who had studied abroad there and got to feel the northern sun on my skin and a breakfast of filmjölk and flingor in my belly. It felt good, reeeeally good, to experience Swedish summer for the first time, and try to practice the bit of Swedish I’d picked up through Pimsleur tapes at the library. And the hospitality was incredible: very unlike anything I’d experienced in the States, Mexico, Canada, or on the whirlwind tour of continental Europe I’d stowed away on at sixteen.
I even got to travel up to Gävle and meet my long lost relatives, and tour the ancestral home my great grandparents and grandfather left behind. That was a surreal and healing moment - and seeing how our ancestors dried their knäckebröd astounded me.
Svenska Kärlek?
I knew I had to go back one day… but I didn’t expect that day would come when I fell in love with a Swedish backpacker three months before I was set to graduate from the University of San Francisco in May 2008 (ouch).
Graduating from college a year early in the middle of a financial crisis meant I was very open to going on a little adventure with a tall blonde man. So I moved to the tiny village of Simrishamn, nestled on the southwestern edge on the Baltic Sea, and became a maid in a bed and breakfast in a 300 year old apple orchard in Kivik, learning more Swedish, this time with a particular southern twang that the locals found incredibly endearing. (For those who don’t know, in the southern state of Skåne many people speak with an accent heavily influence by Danish)
In those 5 months or so, I got to practice a LOT of Swedish. And contrary to what everyone says, outside of Stockholm I found that Swedes really did prefer to speak Swedish and it opened many doors for me. I felt empowered, validated, and a sense of coming. home to a part of myself I had never known before. I felt complete, becoming more comfortable with expressing feelings and building relationships primarily in the Swedish language. I felt home.
Sadly, the relationship did NOT feel like home, and I eventually went back to California to see what was next.
A year later, I went on another international journey, this time staying in Stockholm solo and making new international friends, before suddenly deciding I was called to buy a one way ticket to Cairo the day before New Years Eve. (ah to be 22 again) But during that trip I felt a sort of sneaky pleasure in convincing fellow travelers (even Scandinavians!) that I was actually from Sweden and not an American at all. (I was un-google-able at that time) It was then I started to really understand the feeling of identifying less with your “nationality” and more with… something else.
I think I have always dreamed of deepening my connection with Sweden, the Nordics, and Scandinavia. Perhaps even before I had the words for it. So when (over a decade after my last time on Swedish soil) my fiancé, the 0% Swedish wizard Devin Person, told me he wanted to study Swedish and plan a trip together, my heart turned cornflower blue and rapeseed flower gold.
Learning Swedish as a 37 year old american wizard
For the past 6 months since we came up with this idea, Devin has been diligently using Duolingo (thanks Duo) to build up his basic Swedish proficiency from zero to sixty. He has been so devoted, and I’ve noticed his comprehension skills really growing as we watch Swedish TV and movies, follow Swedish news, and listen to Swedish music together. He’s done so well with Duolingo that he even decided to add 1:1 live Swedish tutoring with Preply to his regimen.
Last week, we added the ultimate challenge: live in-person conversation together over our morning or early afternoon fika. It has been fascinating for me as a non-native Swedish speaker with ten years of rust on my Swedish tongue, to readjust to speaking and thinking in the language with someone who is brand new to it. I feel like an old woman trying to remember how to talk so I can have a conversation with a baby. But the baby is actually a grown man who is an incredibly powerful communicator in English, so the restrictions of a new language can be incredibly frustrating for him! We delved into this concept a bit just last week on his podcast, if you’re interested in hearing more about the vulnerability involved in learning a language together.
But despite the awkwardness of speaking mediocre Swedish alone together in Louisville, KY, we’re having a lot of fun learning and re-learning together, and we’re eager to test out our skills on our trip, now barely more than two month’s away.
Where Are the Swedish Poets, Artists and Magical People?
As we finalize our itinerary, we are looking for a few types of persons, places, and things to complete our trip. If you or anyone you know of have recommendations or invitations to share, please reach out to me at lamarks@arspoetica.us
Cultural Research and Entertainment: Shows, performances, and experiences that we can attend to see artistic and mystical creations during the month of August
Lifestyle Research: Intentional communities, small permaculture projects, ecotourism, land shaping, places to appreciate indigenous and ancient relationships with the landscape, artist communes
Live Custom On-Demand Poetry Writing: We are both talented poets, and I in specific am looking for opportunities to write poems (in English and Swedish!) on my typewriter. We can set up typewriters and do interactive poetry writing at weddings, festivals, cafés, bookstores, hotels, conferences, private kräftskiva parties, in the lobby of the Kulturhuset Stadsteatern.
Poetry and Creative Experiences with Brands: As the founder and owner of my own creative agency, my wish is that I can forge some relationships with Swedish companies that I admire, as well as individuals. I do creativity and writing workshops, write poems at company happy hours, and often use poetry for branded activations (eg: set up in a café writing haiku for customers, sponsored by the most beloved oat milk company on earth) Some brands I already know about and would love to meet are: Voi e-Scooters, Instabox, Swedish Hasbeens, Micorena, Swedish Stockings, Polestar, Volvo, Oatly, Spotify, and of course the mothership of IKEA. But I’d love to learn about more innovative organizations, especially in the realms of environment, hospitality, humane and ethical future tech, food and beverage, feminism, LGBTQ+, and refugee and immigrant support. I also do copywriting!
Mystical Podcast Guests: Devin has a popular podcast called This Podcast is a Ritual and is looking to meet and interview likeminded philosophical and magical people who would like to share their work and ideas with a global audience.
Swedish Language Learning and Practice: if you know of groups or classes that gather to help learners of the Swedish language practice and get to know the culture, we’d love to join!
Local Businesses, Artisans, and Creators: We want to spend our time supporting small businesses and immersing in the most fascinating and obscure representations of culture in Sweden. Whether that’s the best queer-owned rural roadside café for unique fika, a hidden away restaurant owned by immigrants to Sweden, a 29th generation Dala horse carver, or a Sami folk musician, we want to know about it! And of course the best foods and drinks we CAN’T miss.
Tattoos: I am ready to get a new tattoo (only my second one ever) and I’d like to do it in Sweden this summer. So please send me recommendations!
what to do as weirdos in sweden
In summation: we are up for anything this August. I can’t wait to see what interesting new connections this brings to Ars Poetica, to Devin’s wizardry practice, to my own deepening of connection with my ancestors, and to our small contributions to a more collaborative, beautiful, communicative world of weirdos and wild people.
