Poets far from thrilled by the royal wedding

When asked, Swedish poets weren’t that into writing loving hymns for Victoria and Daniel on their wedding day. Instead they just published their anti-royal poetry in the paper Re:public. “We were shocked at the attention from the media..." 

  • Cirkus Cirkör, part of the June celebration in Stockholm. Photo: Mattias Edwall, courtesy of Love Stockholm 2010.
  • When asked, Swedish poets weren’t that into writing loving hymns for Victoria and Daniel on their wedding day. Instead they just published their anti-royal poetry in the paper Re:public’s slightly different wedding special. Stockholm City asked poets to write for the royal wedding but not many poets seemed interested, so the project was abandoned. However, the poets were fueled and have now found a different forum for their writings.
    “We were shocked at the attention from the media starting already with the engagement,” says Anders Birgersson, editor-in-chief of Re:public. Rapport (a news program on Swedish TV) stated that all Swedes were happy about the marriage of the Crown Princess, and that kind of spirit has prevailed.”
    With their own wedding special, Re:public wants to show that there are Swedes who feel differently about the upcoming royal affair. Thomas Tidholm, Jenny Tunedal and Göran Greider are three of the poets who have now published “anti poems” in Re:public. In the poem “Beundrandet” (the Admiration) by Tidholm one can read the following about the royal family: “this little security-guarded, spoiled family/their costly habits, their tailored suits/their admirable, dutiful charity/their pretty dealings with their admired offspring and relatives” (the original reads: ”denna lilla säkerhetsklassade bortskämda familj/de kostsamma vanorna, de skräddarsydda kläderna/den beundransvärda pliktskyldiga välgörenheten/det fina umgänget med de beundrade ättlingarna och släktingarna”.) When asked if he feels it’s too much excitement over the wedding, Tidholm answered: “Excitement is only the beginning of it. It’s sick. I am not an active republican, but react at crazy things and this almost takes the prize in craziness. My text is trying to sort things out, ask why people almost fall into trance and wave flags, instead of just saying ‘f**k off’ to the monarchy.”
    Nordstjernan has earlier covered the growing debate over the very existence of the Swedish monarchy, for instance here: http://www.nordstjernan.com/news/sweden/2275/