Jan Erik Vold's poetry can be divided into three phases. In the 1960s it was avant-garde and extroverted; in the 1970s, unlike most of the poets of his generation, he was a purely lyrical (sentrallyrisk) rather than a political poet; and in the 1990s he went against the dominant language-centered minimalism and became a poet-journalist engaged with social issues. The scope of Vold's poetry is enormous, with each new collection based on a new concept: poetry that follows a formal system in blikket (The Gaze, 1966), prose poems in fra rom til rom SAD & CRAZY (From Room to Room: Sad & Crazy, 1967), urban Oslo poetry in Mor Godhjertas glade versjon. Ja (Mother Goodhearted's Happy Version. Yes, 1968), provocation in kykelipi (1969), haiku in spor, snø (Traces, Snow, 1970), meditation in S (1978), travel narrative in sirkel, sirkel. Boken om prins Adrians reise (Circle, Circle. The Book about Prince Adrian's Journey, 1979), and broadsides in...