While Halldis Moren Vesaas was not the first female lyric poet in Norway, few of her predecessors are read or remembered today. From the outset of her career she was acknowledged as an important and original voice, and she has remained one of Norway's most widely read poets. Her writing gave expression to female experiences--love, erotic feelings, and motherhood--that had not previously been explored in Norwegian verse.

Halldis Moren was born on 18 November 1907 in Trysil in eastern Norway. The eldest of five children, and the only daughter, of writer Sven Moren and Gudrid Moren, née Breie, she was raised in a literary environment and was an avid reader from an early age. She attended a teachers' college, and in 1928 she passed the examination that qualified her to teach; but the following year she took a position as secretary for the Norwegian delegation to the League of...