Lögberg-Heimskringla - 13.12.1996, Page 9

Lögberg-Heimskringla • Föstudagur 13, desember 1996 • 9
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Káinn:
The Greatest Poet of North Dakota
by Kevin Jón Johnson
Kristján Níels Jónsson, bom to
a blacksmith and his wife in
Akureyri in 1860, died of a
stroke in the Pembina County of
North Dakota on 25 October 1936.
Known as K.N. Júlíus, he laboured on
farms and dug graves for a living.
Tammy Einarson calls him the
greatest poet of North Dakota in her
well researched essay in the Summer
1994 issue of The Icelandic Canadian.
This year is the sixtieth anniversary of
Káinn’s death.
To celebrate the anniversary of
this unique and gifted poet, an idea
recommended to me by Baldur
Schaldemose, I will rely on the efforts
of Magnús Einarsson and draw some
examples of Káinn’s poetry from the
resource of his book, Icelandic-
Canadian Popular Verse.
Tómas Oddsson of Arborg,
Manitoba, remembered the following
verse:
Ég er að skrifa héðan heim
því heill ogfeitur er,
og ennþá lifi á óstyrk þeim
sem ellin veitir mér.
Magnus Einarsson translates this
poem, which reflects the typical
ABAB rhyming pattem employed by
Káinn, as follows: “I am writing home
from here,/ As I am hale and hearty,/
And still live on the non-support/
Which old age grants me” (33).
After attending Mass one Sunday, ,
when the priest exhorted the con-
gregation on the many things in our
behaviour that could be abandoned,
Rósmundur Arnason of Elfros,
Saskatchewan, remembered the reply
of the poet:
KvennfólkiÖ er að kyssast
og kemst svo aldrei afstað;
það er nú eitt sem mætti missast
minnið þid prestinn á það.
This translates as: “The women
are always kissing/ And can never get
going;/ That’s one thing that could be
eliminated,/ Remind the priest about
that.” Einarsson notes that Icelandic
women customarily greeted each other
with a kiss, in those days (94).
On another occasion, when K. N.
dirtied his hands cleaning a bam, an
itinerant preacher, Sigurður Sig-
valdason, challenged the poet as to the
nature of his beliefs. Unsatisfied by
the reply that K.N. did not believe
in anything, Bible Siggi pressed
further. Asgeir Gíslason of Leslie,
Saskatchewan remembered the spicy
reply:
Kýrrassa tók ég trú,
trú þeirri held ég nú;
íflórnumfœ ég að standa
fyrir náð heilags anda.
Einarsson translates: “I placed my
faith in a cow’s ass,/ That faith I hold
onto now;/ In the dung channel I’m
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allowed to stand/ By the grace of the
Holy Ghost” (95).
Something of Káinn’s gift for
parody appears in the following lines
remembered by Páll Hallson of Win-
nipeg. The poet refers to the American
liquor prohibition in this contempo-
raneous verse:
Þá voru landar miklir menn,
meiri en jötnar í hömrum.
Margur fékk kjaftshögg, ég man
það enn,
meðan við drukkum á kömrum.
This translates as: “Our compatriots
were mighty back then,/ Mightier than
giants in cliffs./ Many got a blow in
the chops, I remember it still,/ When
we drank in outhouses” (138).
Gísli Gillis of Wynyard, Saskat-
chewan recalled this verse about a
hard winter. Siggi Ptarmigan, so
named for his dapple- coloured hair,
shared a room with K.N.:
Vetrarforða eigum ei
utan skuldasúpu,
það veit Guð og María mey
um mig og Sigga rjúpu.
Einarsson translates: “We don’t have
winter provisions,/ Except for some
soup on credit,/ God and the Virgin
Mary know that/About me and Siggi
Ptarmigan” (148-149).
On another occasion, Káinn
perceives something of the brevity of
life, and the surety of decay, when
observing his room-mate Siggi asleep:
Þad veit Guð mér gremst að sjá
gráflekkótta kúpu
þegar ég fer að hátta hjá
henni Siggu rjúpu.
This recollection, also from Gísli
Gillis of Wynyard, Saskatchewan,
translates as follows: “God knows it
irritates me to see/ The grey-patched
skull/ When I go to bed down with/
Siggi ptarmigan” (367).
When a friend had lost his
girlfriend, and asked K.N. to produce
a fitting, forlom poem, Sveinn
Bjömsson of White Rock, British
Columbia remembered the reply:
Miimist

í ERFÐASKRAM YÐAC
Ég hvíldi þreytta hjartað
við hvelfdan barm á þér
og þú lagðir vinstra lœrið
við lœrið hægra á mér.
This translates as: “I rested my tired
heart/ At your swelling bosom/ And
you laid your left thigh/ Up against
my right thigh” (307-308). In English
poetry, this ironic change in tone in
the final two lines is called “bathos.”
The parodist wields bathos with
precise and constant skill.
The comic tradition of writing that
K.N. Júlíus belongs to traces back in
Icelandic literature to the some-times
humorous and sexually explicit
comments recorded in the sagas. In
the westem tradition of literature, such
wit, sarcasm, parody, and word-play
stretches back to the Greek dramatist,
Aristophanes, whose raucous and racy
language entertained thousands of
Athenians each year in the Classical
Age. The Athenians used the far-
fetched, fanciful and bawdy plays of
Aristophanes to break the tension of
the tragedies, with which they
competed for attention, during a
period when they fought for survival
against the Spartans in the Pelopon-
nesian War. Humanity always has a
need for humour.
The great American humorist,
Mark Twain, sometimes despaired
because he could not write serious,
tragic and profound literature. Writing
with a darker theme, even in the Ice-
landic literature of North America,
seems to gain in significance over
“less serious,” humorous writing.
This bias, which claims that tragic
literature lays closer to the heart of the
Norse Muse, recommends the
superiority of Stephansson and
Guttormsson to Jóhann Magnús
Bjamason and Káinn.
Comparing Aristophanes to
Sophocles, Mark Twain to William
Faulkner, or Káinn to Stephansson is
Iike comparing kangaroos to pigeons
— there is little ground for com-
parison, and therefore little ground for
preference. Tragic and humorous
elements intertwine in experience, and
these strands of literature ought not to
be spread apart, studied and rated.
Tammy Einarson called K.N.
Júlíus the greatest poet from North
Dakota. Sixty years after his death, his
drinking songs are still sung in
Iceland, which supports the merit of
such praise. To many, laughter may
seem a greater gift than seriousness of
purpose. □
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