That coin provides a view of Finn Bille’s most recent book of poems, The King’s Coin. In the introduction to this book, the author states that these are his binational poems. These poems celebrate his birthplace in Denmark and his adopted home in America.
Each poem in the book has an accompanying note on the facing page, illuminating the Danish traditions perhaps unfamiliar to American readers. The accompanying note to “The King’s Coin” tells the reader that Finn remembers holding his mother’s hand as he watched the 1947 funeral procession for the beloved King Christian X. The horse with its empty saddle left a lasting impression.
I know I promised to keep king Christian
Safe in my pocket on his Danish coin,
But I lost it on the Greyhound bus
between Chicago and L.A.
I have gone back to Copenhagen
between castle and canal
where I, then five years old, had held
the flag and my mother’s hand
as his empty-saddled horse
rang steel on granite cobblestone.
The coin shop clerk ransacked his drawers
until he found King Christian’s krone,
apologized for smoothed-out edges,
the king defaced and pocket worn.
He did not understand when I said,
Perfect!
That coin in the poem symbolizes Bille’s Danish heritage in a book rich with symbols. The Danish flag adorns the front cover just as it flew over the land of his birth. The American flag adorns the back cover and flies over his adopted nation.
The coin, a krone, embellished with the image of King Christian X rests on the front cover’s Danish flag, with a half-dollar adorned by Lady Liberty. The coins also rest on the back cover’s American flag but with the flip sides visible, the American eagle and the crown and inscription of Christian X.
Section three of the book, titled “At Home in America,” is rich with images of school days in Duarte, California, and other American regions where he later lived. When his mother returned to Denmark with Finn and his siblings, he attended high school there.
Finn says that he famously immigrated to America three times. After high school in Denmark, he returned to live with his father in California and attended Pepperdine University there. The poem “Into Georgia, 1963” represents another transition “Dust Choked me here/but I revived in the shade of hickory and oak/above the slow Chattooga’s mist veiled flow.”
He traveled to Georgia to meet his fiancé Jeanne’s family. Though they initially went to Denmark to live, they returned to Georgia after Finn’s service in the Danish Navy. Finn completed a master’s degree and a Ph.D. at Georgia State University. In the book's introduction, he recognizes Jeanne’s unstinting support over their fifty years of marriage.
From Georgia, Bille arrived in Chattanooga to work in administration at the University of Tennessee as Chattanooga. He moved from there to Baylor School, teaching English, Photography, and a course called Visual Literacy. He also sponsored the writing club and the literary magazine and coached “B Team” soccer. He recruited poets to speak to his classes and at assemblies.
Living in America, he spent several summers in Denmark. These visits may have sparked the “Every Time” poems, Danish memories. The poems are numbered, but Bille sees the first one as significant of the immigrant experience. The line “Every time I see a swan fly” begins a meditation on an experience with his mother, holding him up to see a pair of swans on the water. In the final every time poem "every time I say goodbye,” he depicts a poignant farewell to his mother, who had returned to Denmark and a life of her own.
As much as the “every time’ poems share his memories of Denmark, a later poem, “Church Ships,” depicts the seafaring nature of Danes through three model ships hanging from the ceiling of a church. “the church looks out to sea/and paintings on the ceiling/tell stories of the fall of man.” Hanging model ships from church ceilings is a Danish tradition, but do the ships symbolize the story of Bille’s immigration to America? Perhaps.
Finn Bille still speaks the Danish language, but, in his words, his speech indicates a Dane who lives in America. English is now his primary language. This is perhaps reflected in his poem about The Little Mermaid, preserved in stone in Copenhagen’s harbor. His notes on the poem quote Hans Christian Anderson’s tale of this ultimate immigrant: “Once you have had a human body, you can never be a mermaid again.”
Today, Finn Bille looks back on a life of teaching and scholarship, as well as experiences as a Certified Mediator and a Consultant to the Hamilton County Regional Planning Agency. He wrote a book on public participation in the planning process for the Agency and gave a presentation on its contents in Chicago at the Conference of Architects.
Bille also published the independent paper, The Art of Living, for several years. The paper told stories of life in Chattanooga, ranging from regional events to environmental concerns. The author of this review was a contributor.
Finn Bille has given us a fine book of poems. Several have appeared in The Bridge: Journal of the Danish American Heritage Society, Julie K. Allen, Editor. In her review of the book, she says, “…a sensually and emotionally rich contribution to the literature of hyphenated identity that should resonate with readers far beyond the remembered Denmark and the America he so skillfully evokes.”
The Kings Coin is available in print at Winder Binder Gallery in North Chattanooga and from the Museum of Danish America in Elkhorn, Iowa. It is also available as a free download on finnbille.com
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