Poems by Piet Hein

Piet Hein

Piet Hein was not just a poet. He was a mathematician, inventor and designer as well. Being a Danish he often wrote under the Old Norse pseudonym "Kumbel" meaning "tombstone". His short poems, known as gruks or grooks, first started to appear in the daily newspaper "Politiken" shortly after the Nazi occupation in April 1940 under the pseudonym "Kumbel Kumbell".Piet Hein, who, in his own words, "played mental ping-pong" with Niels Bohr in the inter-War period, found himself confronted with a dilemma when the Germans occupied Denmark. He felt that he had three choices: Do nothing, flee to "neutral" Sweden or join the Danish resistance movement. As he explained in 1968, "Sweden was out because I am not Swedish, but Danish. I could not remain at home because, if I had, every knock at the door would have sent shivers up my spine. So, I joined the Resistance."His main weapon appeared to be his pen. The Danes understood the importance of his poetry and soon it was found as graffiti all around the country.

All Poems Original Poems Translations

« ‹ 1 2 3 4 5

Making an Effort

Our so-called limitations,believe,

apply to faculties we don't apply.

We don't discover what we can't achieve

until we make an effort not to try.

155

by Piet Hein

Wide Road

To make a name for learning

when other roads are barred,

take something very easy

and make it very hard.

174

by Piet Hein