Reykjavík Grapevine - 10.08.2012, Síða 44

B O O K I N G S : T E L . : + 3 5 4 5 6 2 2 3 0 0 W W W . L I F E O F W H A L E S . I S
Whale-Watching Tour Duration: 3 hours
The tour includes a stop by Puffin Island 15th May - 20th August
APR MAY JUN JUL AUG SEPT OCT NOV-MAR
08:55 08.55 08:55 08:55 08:55
12:55 12:55 12:55 12:55 12:55 12:55 12:55 12:55
16:55 16:55 16:55
ADULTS: 47€ / 7.500 ISK
CHILDREN: 7-15 22€ / 3.500 ISK
CHILDREN: 0-6 FREE

Other Tours
Puffin Island Tours Duration:1-1,5 hours
15th May - 20th August Every day
10:00 | 12:00 | 14:00
ADULTS: 3.800 ISK• CHILDREN: 1.900 ISK • CHILDREN: 0-6 FREE
Sea Angling and Grill Duration: 3 hours
May - September Every day
17:00
ADULTS: 10.500 ISK • CHILDREN: 5.000 ISK • CHILDREN: 0-6 FREE
Gerður Kristný: Icelandic writer competes in the
Poetry Olympics
Part of the UK’s 2012 Cultural Olympiad
and initiated by leading British light Si-
mon Armitage, this was one of the larg-
est poetry events the world has ever
witnessed. Sharing centre stage with
literary luminaries such as Saint Lucia’s
Derek Walcott and Australian poet John
Kinsella, Gerður read from her collection
‘Bloodhoof,’ published in English for the
first time this year.
The vast event was opened with a
‘Rain of Poems’ over London’s South
Bank, as Chilean arts collective Casa-
grande dropped 100,000 poems printed
on bookmarks from a helicopter above
the twilit River Thames.
Gerður was at the heart of the action
at the opening set-piece, where people
jostled good-naturedly to catch one of
the falling works of art, gliding and glit-
tering through the sky like ticker-tape,
even bartering for rare Latin American
verses or perfectly-formed Japanese
haikus.
“I tend to become a little combative
with anything like this,” admits Gerður,
as she remembers witnessing an elderly
man eagerly gazing heavenward hop-
ing to catch his own literary memento.
“I stood with him and made sure nobody
else came near so that he would get
something. I can be quite aggressive. I
think it’s because at school I was never
very good at sports.”
This was just the beginning of six
days of poetic performance and enjoy-
ment, with talks and shows that spoke to
the universal themes familiar to so many
of those nations represented: identity,
conflict, freedom.
More like a big football match
The festival atmosphere however was
what constantly prevailed. “This doesn’t
normally happen in poetry,” she laughs.
“Poets have to look serious and earnest.
This was more like a big football match!”
Gerður first met the festival cura-
tor Simon Armitage whilst travelling
through Asia some years ago. Armitage
is one of the UK’s best-loved contem-
porary poets. His latest works take the
English folkloric tales of King Arthur and
the Knights of the Round Table and bring
them to a modern readership.
One of his earliest books was ‘Moon
Country,’ published in 1996 with fellow
British writer Glyn Maxwell following
their voyage to Iceland, in turn evok-
ing the travels of W.H. Auden and Louis
MacNeice to the country in the 1930s,
which inspired their collection ‘Letters
From Iceland.’
For Gerður, the Parnassus was “a
crash course in international poetry,”
yet she is hardly a beginner in the global
poetic kingdom. She flicks through her
copy of ‘The World Record,’ the official
anthology of voices from the Poetry Par-
nassus (in which she herself is of course
published), and recalls her favourite po-
ems, some of which were written her old
friends.
Globetrotting with her poetry
As part of the festival, Gerður travelled
across the Irish Sea to Derry in Northern
Ireland to take part in a ‘Poetry Death-
match,’ competing against poets from
Tuvalu, Grenada, and Oman among oth-
ers in round after round as poets were
voted out until a winner was declared. “It
was more like the Eurovision Song Con-
test,” she jokes.
Such globetrotting is by now second
nature to her. Gerður has read her own
work across the world, from Scandinavia
to Asia. Her works appear in anthologies
published far and wide. She shows me a
Dutch anthology of poems about wom-
en, in which her own on Anne Frank is
printed, alongside names such as Lorca,
Nabokov, and Poe. She reads out the
names still struck with awe, only then to
conclude with a poet’s bathos and her
own distinctive charming self-deprecat-
ing humour: “They must be turning in
their graves!”
But her diary is filling up fast. Her
next collection of poetry, ‘Strandir,’ in-
spired by the remote north-western cor-
ner of Iceland, is set to be released later
this year. Soon she’ll be headed to Turku,
the Finnish festival, as well as touring
cities in the UK, and next year heading
rather further afield all the way to Nica-
ragua.
And to hear poetry from every corner
of the earth—not least her own deeply
Icelandic work—remains, she says, a true
thrill. “In Iceland,” she admits in stark
contrast, “people talk of poetry like it’s a
hospital patient in poor health.”
Is it? Who in Iceland writes poetry
today? “I do! And that’s all I care about,”
she concludes with her teasing smile.
But wherever she goes, she introduces
yet more new followers to Iceland’s liter-
ary heritage.
.
It is not only the handballers and the swimmers who are repping RVK in London this
year. The British capital also played host to some of the world’s finest poets earlier this
summer. Reykjavík’s own Gerður Kristný was selected to stand among writers from 204
Olympic nations and represent Iceland in an international ‘Poetry Parnassus.’
Words
Mark O'Brien
Photo
Alísa Kalyanova
Art | Poetry
the opening ceremony at 12:30
in Hljómskálagarðurinn, Jimi
Tenor’s photo exhibit at The Nordic
House and performances from art-
ists like Legend, Sóley and Melchior
at Netagerðin.
Speaking of drunken mad-ness, our Appy Hour app
(available for iOS and Android
RIGHT NOW), which lets you track
101 Reykjavík’s happy hours for
the best offers
currently avail-
able, has become
something of
a hit as of late.
There are report-
edly thousands
of happy drunks downloading the
app and using it to get wasted for
cheap. We try to constantly update
the thing with the latest available
info, so it should be pretty reliable,
too (if it is not, drop us a line). App
on, drunkards! Here’s to you!
Preparations for the annual Reykjavík outpost of the
Melodica music festival are in
the final stages, with a slew of
international and local performers
set to folk out in style in the heart
of 101 Reykjavík over the course of
a weekend. The
three-day party
starts on August
24 and takes
place at Hemmi
& Valdi, Reykja-
vík Backpackers,
Café Rósenberg and Hjartatorg
square. Visiting performers include
Sweden’s Xenia Kriisin, US acts
Kyle Woodward, The Nielsons and
Elliot Rayman and—returning all
the way from Australia—Owls of
the Swamp. Scheduled hometown
heroes include folks such as Myrra
Rós, Svavar Knútur, Low Roar,
Misery Loves Company and Sing
For Me Sandra. More info at www.
melodicafestival.org.
The LÓKAL International Theatre Festival takes place
for the fifth time on August 22-26.
The event has been growing in ac-
claim and attendance over the past
few years, and this year’s edition
promises to be a scorcher. The or-
ganizers promise to bring “some of
the most exciting theatre around”—
this includes “intense physical
performances” by Grandinger &
Schubot, Amy Conroy’s “wonderful
pseudo-documentary theatre” and
“an experimental vocal trip with ac-
tress Álfrún Örnólfsdóttir.” Seek out
tickets and more info on this great
happening at www.lokal.is.
August
WhAT ThE
EFF IS GOING

ON???
44 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 12 — 2012LITERATURE