Hans Børli
Ill.: Oddmund Mikkelsen, 1985
Hans Børli (December 8, 1918 – August 25, 1989) was a Norwegian poet and writer, who besides his writings worked as a lumberjack all his life. He was born in Eidskog, in South-Eastern Norway, close to the Norwegian border to Sweden. He was buried at Eidskog Church.
Biography
Hans Børli was raised on a small farm, in an area with not roads, it was part of the woods in Eidskog Kommune. The experience of poverty and hardship would leave a deep imprint on his later art. However, the positive effects of living close to nature, the wisdom of tradition and the solidarity between workers would also have a huge bearing on his writings. Extensive reading spawned an early urge to write. This was both a way of expressing personal feelings, frowned upon in a masculine worker's environment, and too a possible way of literally escaping a position of economic and social inferiority. His mother's father, himself one of the last great oral narrator of legends and stories of the area, Ole Gundersen Børli, is also considered an important influence on the young, writer to be, Hans Børli. A strict Christian upbringing would leave Børli forever struggling with the counteractive forces of rebellion and a deeply embedded sense of religious awe.
In a social milieu where any education beyond the obligatory was very rare, young Hans, considered a gifted boy, was given a free place in Talhaug Mercantile School, in Kongsvinger which a he later left later he was admitted to a military academy in Oslo, but this education was aborted by the outbreak of the Second World War. Børli fought the Germans, and was involved in some intense battles in Vardal, and was captured in Verdal. After being released, he went back to Eidskog and worked as a teacher and forest worked for the rest of the war. He was also involved in activity, leading people, illegally, across the Swedish border for the remainder of the war. All the while he was preparing his first collection of poetry "Tyrield" (Pine Passion) (1945)
Hans Børli was by his own account (ref) heavily influenced by the Norwegian poet Olav H. Hauge.