Grook

A grook (Danish: gruk) is a form of short aphoristic poem or rhyming aphorism created by the Danish poet, designer, inventor, and scientist Piet Hein. He wrote over 7,000 of them from 1939 until his death in 1996, mostly in Danish[2]. The grooks are multi-faceted and characterized by irony, paradox, brevity, precise use of language, rhythm and rhyme, and an often satiric nature. Many of the grooks have an accompanying line drawing, which provides additional meaning. This webpage[3] contains many volumes of gruks in Danish. There is also a CD, in which Piet Hein reads some gruks.

Some say that the name "gruk" is short for "grin & suk" (lit. 'laugh & sigh'), but Piet Hein said he felt that the word had come out of thin air. The contemporary "Hunden Grog" ("Grog the Dog") stories by fellow cartoonist Storm P. have, in public opinion, been regarded as an inspiration.

A Grook as passive resistance
TRØSTE-GRUK
by Piet Hein
LanguageDanish
LinesDen, som taber
sin ene handske,
er heldig
   i forhold til den,
som taber den ene,
kasserer den anden . . .
og finder
   den første igen.
Consolation Grook
by Piet Hein
TranslatorHugo Piet Hein
LinesLosing one glove
is certainly painful,
but nothing
   compared to the pain,
of losing one,
throwing away the other,
and finding
   the first one again.

Piet Hein was president of the Anti-Nazi Union when the Germans invaded Denmark in 1940.[5] He became an underground passive resister. He found a way to encourage resistance through the use of poems, which he called "gruks" ("grooks" in English), and began publishing them in the daily newspaper "Politiken" under the pseudonym "Kumbel Kumbell"[7]. His most famous one, Consolation Grook[9] , appears to the right in both Danish and English. The Germans, censoring everything that was published, did not understand the grook and let it be published. But the Danes understood its meaning, and it began appearing as graffiti throughout Denmark, for it gave the Danes courage.

To understand the grook, consider as the two gloves your freedom and your patriotism. The Nazi invasion took away the first glove. Don't throw away the other by collaborating with the Germans because that betrayal will be very painful when you get back your freedom someday.

Grooks in English

Beginning in the 1960s, seven volumes of English translations of 53 grooks each were published and became popular in the U.S. counterculture of the time: Grooks (1966),[10] Grooks 2 (1968),[11] Grooks 3 (1970),[12] Grooks 4 (1972),[13] Grooks 5 (1973),[14] Grooks VI (1978),[15] and Grooks VII (1984).[16]

The following books of grooks are available on this subpage[17] of the website "Peit Hein".
Collected Grooks I[8]
Collected Grooks II[18]
Runaway Runes: Short Grooks I[19]
Viking Vistas: Short Grooks II[20]

Selected grooks

These grooks are in the books Collected Grooks I[8] and Collected Grooks II.[18]

  • The Road to Wisdom

The road to wisdom?—
Well, it's plain and simple to express:
   Err
   and err
   and err again,
   but less
   and less
   and less.

  • Wisdom Is

Wisdom is
the booby prize,
Given when you've been
unwise

  • To Sum Up

It may be observed
   in a general way,
that life would be
   better, distinctly
If more of the people
   with nothing to say
were able to say it
   succinctly.

  • The Eternal Twins

Taking fun
   as simply fun
and earnestness
   in earnest
shows how thoroughly
   thou none
of the two
   discernest.

  • Reflection Re Fractions

It is indeed
too odd
   for words
that half's
three quarters.
   of two thirds.

  • For Better Or

Many-a-man of many a letter
has left this World a little better
Alas, it is the poet's curse
to leave this World a little verse.




References
  1. "Database of Gruks". piethein.com.
  2. This webpage[1] is a database of over 7,000 gruks by Piet Hein, in Danish. The page says (in Danish) that you can freely search it and have them emailed directly to you.
  3. "Books in Danish". piethein.com.
  4. Hicks, Jim (14 October 1966). "A Poet with a Slide Rule: Piet Hein Bestrides Art and Science". Life. 51 (16): 55–66. ISSN 0024-3019.
  5. A long article in Life Magazine[4] talks about Piet Hein's becoming a passive resister beginning on page 63. It corroborates what is said here. At the time, he thought there would be 4-5 grooks, not the ~7,000 that he later wrote. He says that the word "gruk" came to him out of empty air.
  6. piethein.com Archived 4 August 2010 at the Wayback Machine
  7. "Here is the reason why: Piet is the Dutch form of the name Peter or Petrus, which means rock, stone, and Hein is a way of spelling 'hen', the old Danish word for a whetstone. 'Kumbel', or 'kumbl' as it strictly speaking should be written, also means stone, though more a grave monument. In other words, Piet Hein, or Stone Stone can, in a way, be translated by Kumbel Kumbel. He originally wrote the second word with two Ls, also later the signature became just Kumbel – the name he is at least as well known by as his own."[6]
  8. Hein, Piet (January 1, 2002). Hugo Piet Hein (ed.). Collected Grooks I (2 ed.). Borgen. ISBN 87-21-01859-6.
  9. Consolation Grook is the fourth grook in Collected Grooks I.[8]
  10. Hein, Piet (November 15, 1966). Grooks. Translated by Jens Arup. The MIT Press. ISBN 978-0262580076.
  11. Hein, Piet (January 1, 1968). Grooks 2. Translated by Jens Arup. Doubleday. ISBN 978-8741810942.
  12. Hein, Piet (January 1, 1970). Grooks 3. Translated by Jens Arup. Doubleday. ISBN 978-0773610040.
  13. Hein, Piet (January 1, 1972). Grooks 4. Translated by Jens Arup. Doubleday. ISBN 978-0385006590.
  14. Hein, Piet (January 1, 1973). Grooks 5. Translated by Jens Arup. Doubleday. ISBN 9780385029681.
  15. Hein, Piet (January 1, 1978). Grooks VI. Translated by Jens Arup. Borgen's Pocketbooks. ISBN 978-8741846811.
  16. Hein, Piet (January 1, 1984). Grooks VII. Translated by Jens Arup. Borgen's Pocketbooks. ISBN 978-8741871639.
  17. "Books in other languages". piethein.com. Retrieved 2023-07-04.
  18. Hein, Piet (January 1, 2002). Hugo Piet Hein (ed.). Collected Grooks II (2 ed.). Borgen. ISBN 87-21-01861-8.
  19. Hein, Piet (January 1, 1968). Jens Arup (ed.). Runaway Runes: Short Grooks I. Borgen. ISBN 87-418-2620-5.
  20. Hein, Piet (January 1, 1968). Jens Arup (ed.). Viking Vistas: Short Grooks II. Borgen. ISBN 87-418-5639-2.
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