The Rubus scholarship recipient performed a poem about the value of free culture
The stage poet Josefin Şîlan Karlsson accepted the Rubus Arcticus scholarship with a poem. It was specially written for the scholarship ceremony and weaves in references to the other Rubus scholarship recipients this year. Watch her reading before the regional council or read it yourself.
What is culture?
It can be terribly boring and dreary and boring.
and noisy and disruptive and provocative
disgusting, embarrassing.
It can be deceitful and deceptive,
cunning and sneaky,
dreamy and illusory,
provisional, notorious.
It can be a risk-taking
that demands from us courage we don't think we have,
blood, sweat and tears.
It can be bloody serious or joyful play,
deceitful, flattering, or hesitant.
It can be a couple's dance and a sonnet wreath and shiny paper for crackers.
It can be either or and both,
challenging and ambiguous,
Shocked and shocked.
It can be a single glimmer of light in a hospital bed.
It can be Now a thousand Christmas lights are lit in a Lucia train,
The heyday is now coming at a school graduation.
It can be pleasure and rest, bring joy and comfort.
It can soothe the crying that tears at the chest.
or open all the tear ducts wide open.
It can give us something to hold on to during harsh polar winter nights.
It can be undemanding or require requirements,
dust of old ideas, preconceptions, destructive norms,
clean out musty winds,
open doors and windows and let the oxygen in again.
It can be a single friend
when loneliness echoes all around.
It could be e-juice and worn-out reading chairs,
pleasure, power and inspiration,
MoMA and Konsthall Tornedalen and Korpilombolo Night Festival,
Arvidsträskmord and accordion and queer club.
It can be old-fashioned rock and baroque and puppet theatre,
free jazz and dance class and brass band,
Let's dance and stand up and Stanley Kubrick,
matiné and pas de bourree and the intermission music before the second half,
the cheering from the stands or
the polite applause from the second floor.
It can affect you directly,
Grab it and turn it around.
It can be patience and self-control,
This week's news in P4 Norrbotten.
It could be a home,
an identity,
a self-knowledge.
It can carry memories of those who have gone before,
Do something better for those who will follow.
It can tear down walls, climb mountains.
It can paint with all colors, not just black and white.
It can be a wedding march and a wallpaper pattern,
be like little windows that let us see into each other's interiors,
be mirrors that allow us to discover ourselves.
It can be unpleasant for those of you who complain more than you create,
you who want to divide and rule,
you who fear change and evolution
because it could be the spark that ignites a revolution.
It can be caring and ruthless.
It can describe us, protect us, liberate us.
It can remind us of everything we already know;
about our humanity.
It can develop our empathy,
transform pain into poetry,
be a breeding ground for democracy,
create meaning in our lives,
let us see who we are and who we could become.
What is culture?
It can be sad and boring.
and absolutely, absolutely wonderful when we let it be free.
By Josefin Şilan Karlsson, November 20, 2024
