The History of Things in Ralf Andtbacka’s Wunderkammer

There are piles, heaps, and catalogues of all sorts of things, all loosely arranged for an extravagant show-and-tell. In Wunderkammer (2008), a collection of collage poems by the Finland-Swedish poet Ralf Andtbacka, lists of things are a recurring element that halts the flow of the otherwise voluminous and narrative expression. In a poem called “Thing” (“Ting”), whose name admits close affinity to Rainer Maria Rilke’s Dinggedichte (Thing Poems), one such list starts by cataloguing the most mundane, everyday objects. Very soon, however, the list becomes more fantastic, opening up vistas to various countries,