Poet and writer. Born in Oslo, she is considered to be among Norway’s most significant poets of the modernist movement, a genre of literature that made a self-conscious break with previous genres. Her works are published in more than twenty collections of poetry, a total of some 700 poems. Her debut came during the Second World War, while she was working as a cashier. She received a scholarship, and used the money to travel to France and Denmark. She also received several prizes from the Norwegian Authors Society. Among her favorite poets were Olaf Bull and Emil Boyson, while the source of her inspiration was found among the works of Rudolf Nilsen, Keats, Byron and Shelly. She sometimes wrote under the pseudonyms Asle Jord, Grey Stone and Tore Tam. Her later life was greatly influenced by the death of her close friend, Ruth Maier, who was deported to Auschwitz and was murdered there in 1942. She published five collections of poetry from 1946 to 1955. Suffering from psychiatric problems, she was hospitalized for the next 16 years. She began writing again in 1971 and produced fifteen more collections of poetry until she passed away. Her work frequently drew inspiration from the suffering of war, guilt from surviving, the death of her close friend Maier, and her anger with God. She left behind enough material to publish several more books of poetry, some of which has been published after her death. She was the first major Norwegian author to declare herself a lesbian, and her lifelong relationship with author Astrid Tollefsen made them both socially remarkable women for their time. Her death came suddenly following a short illness, and she is buried with her mother and brother at Vestre Gravlund, Oslo.