By Alan Sorensen
Terry Brix grew up on Havre's Fifth Street, not far from Carpenter Park. It was the neighborhood and his mother, whose family was Swedish and Norwegian, he said, that provided his first glimpse of Scandinavians.
Brix graduated from Havre High School in 1963 and went on to earn his degree in chemical engineering from Montana State University in 1967. During the ensuing decades, he has had several opportunities to visit Norway, the Land of the Midnight Sun, on business.
Now Brix is a published poet whose collection, "Chiseled from the Heart," is widely acclaimed in Norway.
"It has been a gratifying and fantastic experience," Brix said in a news item issued in conjunction with the release of the book in the United States last week. "In Havre, I was raised with Havskjolds, Petersens, Gorseths, not to mention my own extensive family. To go back to the place where so many Montanans came from has been a linkage to my past."
"Chiseled from the Heart" is a poetic tribute to Vigeland Park in Oslo, the largest bronze and granite sculpture park in Scandinavia. It was created by Gustav Vigeland throughout the first half of the twentieth century. Today, it accommodates 2.5 million visitors a year and is one of the major tourist and artistic attractions in Oslo.
Brix said he became enchanted with the park and started a collection of poetry in English as a writing hobby. Vigeland Museum and Brix began working together in 1997 and the end result was the Norwegian publication of "Chiseled from the Heart." Photos of some of the park's nude sculptures accompanying the poetry were taken by renowned Norwegian photographer Knut Bry.
Much of the poetry captures the sensuality of the sculptures and the need to preserve the haunting images that even amid the blackness of the Norwegian winter cast a metaphoric shadow across the Scandinavian landscape.
Brix was in Havre visiting his brother Robert last weekend and stopped by The Daily News for a brief interview Monday before going back to work.
"I wrote Chiseled in the Heart' at first because of the beauty of the place and the universal connections I saw," he said. "Then I found out about the environmental destruction caused by time, air pollution and acid rain, the book took on added dimensions. It became not only a review of beauty, person and place, but a plea for preservation."
Brix said the book is available through Big Sky Books in Havre and through Amazon.Com on the Internet.
Brix is president of several small "green" technology development companies. He lives in Blue River, Ore., but spends a lot of time in Bozeman, where he has a research and development company.
Brix can be reached by mail at Brix Works, P.O. Box 190, Blue River, OR 97413-0190. His phone number is (541) 822-8400 and his fax is (541) 833-8190. E-mail Brix at atbrix@earthlink.net.
